{"id":436747,"date":"2010-03-16T23:17:00","date_gmt":"2010-03-17T03:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28943539.post-1907944422283434052"},"modified":"2010-03-17T11:22:18","modified_gmt":"2010-03-17T15:22:18","slug":"whos-gonna-watch-you-die","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/436747","title":{"rendered":"Who’s gonna watch you die?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Death.<\/p>\n

For a non-believer in things such an all-powerful god or magical make-believe places you go when you die, death is a perplexing concept to me.<\/p>\n

When I’m standing in the back of the ICU room of a patient recently given the designation of Do Not Resuscitate (DNR)\/ Comfort Measures Only (CMO), with the monitors facing the opposite of the families, and anxiously waiting for the ECG rhythm to go asystole so I can print a strip for time of death, I’m more than likely in another world. Besides the fact that I am trying to emotionally distance myself from the situation for fear that I will go sit next to the 84 year old sobbing husband holding his dying wives hand and break down with him, I am also questioning everything about life. Everything is just so…fleeting. And when the patient finally passes, and the times comes to remove all of the lines, tubes, and dressings, I just look at the lifeless person and wonder, “Where ARE they? Where did they go!?” You almost expect them to blink or move at any moment, but they do not.<\/p>\n

And I find it hard to not cry. There is a fine line between being professional and also being a caring professional nurse and providing families with adequate comfort\/grief. I don’t want to cry in front of them, yet I don’t want to seem…cold? Deep down, I’m thinking, “fuck, this sucks.” Honestly.<\/p>\n

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\n—<\/p>\n

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… it’s hard to stay mad when there’s so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I’m seeing it all at once, and it’s too much. My heart fills up like a balloon that’s about to burst …<\/span><\/span><\/i><\/b><\/span><\/div>\n
And then I remember … to relax, and not try to hold on to it. And then it flows through me like rain. And I can’t feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life. You have no idea what I’m talking about, I’m sure. Don’t worry … you will someday.<\/span><\/span><\/i><\/b><\/span><\/div>\n

—
\nAnother tidbit: last week when one of my patient’s died, just moments later, the lullaby music played on the overhead indicating that a baby was born. I immediately sung in the my head, “And babies are born in the same buildings where people go to pass away…”<\/i><\/b><\/span>
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\nI was browsing you tube videos to try and find a video about ICU nurses to give an accurate image of what I do at my job. I happened to come across this instead<\/a>. I don’t know the song, personally, but the video is well-done. For someone who has actually watched the monitor as someone dies, I find the music to be a good interpretation.<\/p>\n

I also love this story done by CBS a few months ago about the cost of dying:<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/stories\/2009\/11\/19\/60minutes\/main5711689.shtml<\/p>\n

———
\nMade a lovely chocolate cake today. Enjoyed it warmed with moose-tracks ice cream:)<\/p>\n

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\nSorry, I’m feeling a bit emo at the moment…:)<\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Death. For a non-believer in things such an all-powerful god or magical make-believe places you go when you die, death is a perplexing concept to me. When I’m standing in the back of the ICU room of a patient recently given the designation of Do Not Resuscitate (DNR)\/ Comfort Measures Only (CMO), with the monitors […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1890,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-436747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1890"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=436747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436747\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=436747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=436747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=436747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}