a christmas blessing!

not to continue on with the depressing but i wanted to let you know about a recent experience i had.  i had to work 5 days in a row (my last 2 eight hour classroom days followed by 3 12 hour nights) to finally get to an 8 day christmas vacation!  for whatever reason i didn't want to go to work on saturday night at all and had to hold in the tears while parking, only to find out that not only did i have the patient in the rainbow room (which for lack of better words is the dying room) but i also had a new preceptor that i didn't know at all.  we got in report that our patient, marie, was actively dying and i was honest with my preceptor from the beginning that i had never been when my patient actually dies before and that i was really quite anxious about it (not to mention having 2 other patients to take care of)  that night was the hardest night of my life, what ensued was a whirlwind of emotions and struggling between the profesionalism of what is my career and having a heart and wanting to break down and hold the family.

this pt. was one i had taken care of before and have struggled through dealing with the gruesomeness of death and dying already (kids dying of cancer is not as peaceful as i thought it would be for 2008, but i'll save that for another e-mail).  while she was in pain during the day, we increased her fent. and versed once in my shift and she seemed peaceful.  throughout the night, her resp. rate went from 30 at the beginning of my shift to 4.  what had made the process difficult up until this point was going in and out of the room; the door was decorated pictures of marie before cancer (just earlier this year, she had a quick battle with cancer) as well as at the beginning of her treatment as she started loosing her hair but looked like a normal kid.  the only marie i knew had a very edematous face from all the steriods, essentially no teeth, was diapered, hooked up to an IV pole with constant fent. and versed dripping, always bundled up and never opened her eyes.  it was so sad to se the child she once was and to know that she was leaving her little sister behind to be an only child.  a nurse from the OICU that knew that family from the beginning of treatment was in the room visiting and came out around 0230 sobbing and we knew she had passed (anyone else hate the word expired?).  going in that room was the most awkward and uncomfortable thing i have ever had to do.  the sound of parents wailing over their child's dead body is one i wish i would have never heard.  we asked them if we could do anything (what a dumb question) before leaving them alone to be with their child and calling a resident to "officially" pronounce the death.  after the death came a lot of tears.  i helped mom give her child one last bath and changer her so that she could lay in bed with her one more time.  after the parents left, we rolled her little body into a body bag and wheeled her down to the morgue where we opened a large refridgerator (where one of our other kid's bodies lied) and slid the body in (a terribly horrific experience i must say).  we helped mom and clean their room (they had basically moved in), loaded up both their cars full of stuff and said goodbye.  they go home to an empty house without the support of child life specialists, social work, case management, nurses, doctors, etc.  as they said, they're losing their family because that is what we had become.

while this is the toughest experience i have ever had to go through (and i must say the timing was sucky) i consider myself blessed to have been there for this family at their lowest point.  while i didn't do anything special and in fact felt awkward and dumb for the majority of the time i hold onto the fact that i "shined like a star in the universe" as i encountered death at it's rawest point and that shining made a different to the family.  going back to work 2 nights after that was rough, but i'm officially done precepting and will return to work the night of jan. 1st on my own, as a real nurse without anyone looking over my shoulder.  i love you guys and miss you all...hope you guys aren't working too hard!  have a great CHRISTMAS!!!  

-haley