Don't wanna get used to it...

From the files... said I would post it. This actually happened on my June 4/ June 5 shift.

I just had the unfortunate experience of having my first and second death in one shift this past weekend. (one at the beginning and one at the end of the shift) I can completely relate to the "dealing with it" stage. Thoughts of it just sort of linger, and I'm still not sure what to make of it.

The first patient I had not met before. She had an intracranial bleed, and came up several hours earlier for comfort measures only. Her entire family was in the room, spending the last moments with her. Everything seemed peaceful, and her family seemed quite relieved when all was said and done and they left the room. I had just begun my shift and was lucky enough that one of the techs (a fellow nursing student) with some experience in deaths stayed to help me.

Because I hadn't seen the patient until she had passed, there was an eerie detatchment with the whole thing... full of concern, but yet no personal experience with the patient to really put me in grief. (Hard to explain - I hope that didn't come out wrong) This woman seemed to have a wonderful family, and was very lucky to pass in such a peaceful manner. The tech that stayed to help me is considering going into hospice, and I couldn't have had a better person show me what to do. Every aspect of the patient's passing was full of dignity and respect.

About 10 or 11 hours later, towards the close of my shift, I started to pick up vital signs to help out the day crew coming in. (We always try to help the next shift when we can!) I heard one of my patients coughing like she was choking up something. (She had been alternating between delerious & comatose - I've never seen her A&O) Well she was fairly comatose... but breathing ok. She had stuff coming out of her mouth that looked white & chunky. I stuck a gloved finger in there, and pulled out a bunch of stuff. I went to get some Toothettes, and stopped at the nurses' station to let the nurse know I grabbed a whole bag for her room, and that we need to probably be giving better oral care on her. When I got back into her room, I moistened a Toothette, and stuck it in her mouth to clean it.

.... that's when I noticed her tongue didn't react ... and saw that she wasn't breathing. She was a DNR, so I ran back to the nurse's station and told her nurse that she wasn't breathing. Two of the nurses came running back to check. One came with the "crash cart" and after listening with the stethoscope, they connected the leads to confirm. It was absolutely awful.

The patient's 60-something daughter was asleep in the room with her. We woke her to tell her, and she freaked out. She left from the room (on the 3rd floor) and went outside to go smoke.... then came back upstairs and told us we had to recussitate her mom... saying "They told me we could change our mind on the DNR... you need to recussitate her!!!" by then it had been to late for us to do anything - even if we could.

The second patient's passing probably would have been ok with me had it not been for her daughter - who did not stop her tirade for almost 2 hours. It was really sad, because we all knew that in her condition, death was inevitable... her mom looked very peaceful, and had not been in any pain for some time.

Again, the whole thing lingered. It wasn't until I got in the car on the way home that I started to get teary eyed. I talked to my dad.. told him I needed a hug... and told him why. He gave me a half-hearted arm around the shoulder, and told me "You're going to have to get used to this in your profession. These things happen" ... that hurt. I took a long hot shower, and cried. I don't ever want to "get used" to people dying on me.

The second patient died on her birthday... and for some reason all I could think about later that day was Mark Twain, who was born during Haley's Comet, and died on his birthday... during Haley's Comet. I don't know why that came to mind - but it did.