Not another work day...

I came into work and looked toward the assignment board and smiled as I saw who my patient was.

"I told them not to give you him...", the ward clerk said.

Confused, I said, "What?" and as they started telling me what happened, I was already walking out toward his room.

"See you Tuesday", he said. I waved back, "Yep, see you Tuesday."

That was the last time I saw him alive - always smiling, always warm. He and his wife were sad that I was off for the next three days. His wife told me that he liked me very much. He said he liked me as his nurse because I cared for him. I thought it was an odd thing to say considering other nurses have cared for him and I only had him back for 2 days since the first time I cared for him.

"I feel anxious and a little scared", he told me a month earlier about the thought of being intubated.

He remembered me from the one time I had him a month ago before he was intubated. I smiled.

"I want everything to stop."

At a meeting with the physicians and family, he told them that he wanted the tube-feeding to stop the following week. My eyes watered and a tear rolled down my face as he spoke. I thought I saw him glance my way temporarily, and then he resumed speaking. Did he notice? I hoped not.

"Be strong, be realistic, but be hopeful at the same time", I told him. He smiled.

He decided on Monday to also remove the oxygen. He decided right after one of his favorite shows, he wanted it done. He removed it with his own two hands. He went peacefully throughout the night they said. There was always someone at his bedside.

His wife didn't know of his decision. I didn't know. I only knew of the tube-feeding. He didn't want his wife to be sad.

Needless to say, I cried.

I didn't know if he could hear. I bent down to whisper in his ear to say my last goodbye. His breaths were shallow and erratic, pulses barely palpable. A few minutes later, he was pronounced dead.

"I told them not to give you him..." she repeated. I said, "No, it's okay."

I cried as I did my post-mortem care. I removed a rubber ID band he wore on his right wrist that indicated he had a smart port and kept it. It was rubbish to everyone, but to me, it was something more. I wore it that day and I smiled each time I saw it.

I'll always remember you.

The Drugs Don't Work

I love both this version and Ben Harper's.

Quality of Life

I recently took care of a terminally ill patient and discharged him home the very same day. What was involved in his care was basically to get him to a state where he was strong enough to be transferred out, which required several transfusions of blood products. His prognosis was so that the physicians didn't bother to do a CBC after the transfusion, because "it wouldn't affect his outcome."

I had him only for one day before the he left. He wanted to go home is my understanding and he knew he wasn't going to get better. He had accepted it, he had a long fight already and I respected him for it. I would want to be closer to my loved ones during my last days - not stuck in a hospital, an unfriendly environment with people poking and prodding you just to keep you alive.

The emotional me didn't cry during the day, partially because I was busy with my patients' care. But, as I was doing my discharge teaching and I looked into his eyes to say my last goodbyes before he left, I had to fight back the tears... unsuccessfully.

It didn't help or console me even when my charge nurse said "You were the perfect one to care for him today." All I was thinking was that he was eventually going to pass away. Even today, I think of him and tears roll down my face as I write.

I also think of myself,... and where I would be. Prognosis - not good.

The Right Thing...

Sometimes you just have to let go to set your heart free and let your mind forget ... I guess that process involves a lot of hurt before that happens.

“Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.” – Dr. Seuss

Ephemeral Loves

It's often that love poems are written about unrequited or ephemeral loves. Such passion and fervor goes into each word, each line, each stanza, in which its audience's emotional response compounds exponentially until its end.

I had an attraction or infatuation in the past with a certain acquaintance who comes from a country known for poets. He was no stranger to writing, especially with respects to love. When I met him he was pining over a lost love. The effort and words he placed into writing a book of poetry about their romance from its beginning to end captivated me.

But I realize now that it was not the person I had an attraction to, but the concept that someone (a guy no less) can love someone so intensely. As a girl, you would want to think someone sometime in your life would feel this way about you (maybe it's just me). You read of these loves, probably most famous of all is Romeo and Juliet, but until knowing him I never knew of anyone who could. Not even me who loves being in love. But perhaps, after a period of time I and many others have just forgotten how it was at each beginning.

It's the intense attraction and longing in the beginning of the relationship. Especially when the relationship is plagued by a distance or other obstacles are such poems written. But regardless of how anyone may deny it or not, the beginning of a love relationship is, just that, the intense attraction. And regardless of how the relationship ends, you can not deny the initial passion of it.

I don't know if we can call it entirely love, but definitely the mixture of love and lust. The highs only last so long, that's why most of the love poems are written about unrequited or ephemeral loves. If these loves lasted a few more years, or if obstacles never plague the writer, the poems probably would have never been written.

That's just my thought and justification. And my path to freeing myself from such a pathetic fairytale induced notion that loves need to be passionate throughout its course. Recently I saw someone write about how a guy should treat a girl, some of it are complete excrement, but perhaps, the M*** a few years ago would probably have agreed. But, all in all, peace of mind and happiness is all I wish for.

The visitor

She lies in her hospital bed, surrounded by white walls, white sheets and various machines beeping around her. Oblivious of her surroundings, she mostly sleeps the day away. A long scar with 23 staples runs along the right side of her head, a lasting memento of her ischemic stroke and the craniotomy that followed. A feeding tube enters her right nare and leads into her stomach.  She does not respond to voice, never utters a word, and she opens her eyes periodically but stares past you.

Questions run through my mind, "What is she looking at? Who is she waiting for?" But I smile knowing the answer.

It never fails, exactly at 10:00 each day, her visitor comes. You could say her knight in shining armor visiting his sleeping beauty. He stares at her like it was love at first sight. His face softens as he enters the room, his smile and gaze as he looks at her melts even my heart away. He does not see her half bald head, nor her scar, nor her disheveled long white hair that hangs almost as lifeless as she does on the other half of her head. He calls her name as he has done for the past month she's been admitted to the hospital and as he has done his whole life with her. Sixty-five years to be exact.

I feel like a voyeur, but not in the sordid kind of way, as I watch the two interact without them noticing. I got lost in their world for a moment, not noticing until a while later when a wet tear upon my cheek awoken me from the dream I was watching. In that dream, I was her, lying in that bed.

Although she wasn't my patient this day, I walk in to see how she was doing, and also how he was. I greet him with my usual, "Hej, svenska pojke." We talked, it was short and sweet. He was always smiling and even joking.

He tells me "I asked the doctor if her memory will be intact when she recovers, and he tells me it should be since it hadn't affected that part of the brain. I said darn, I was hoping she wouldn't remember the bad times." I give him a soft squeeze on the shoulder and tell him, "Even the bad times are good memories." He nods and smiles, as I leave the room.

I look to my co-worker and say "that's what I wish for." Someone to be by my side even during the most hopeless times, when it may seem I may not come out alive. Someone to wipe my drool, when I'm gushing out a river. Someone to come and play my favorite music, although it may seem I'm deaf to the world. Someone to talk to me, to fill my silent lonely frustrating moments with words of encouragement. To know someone's there in the long haul, who never gives up hope in me.

The clock turns 15:00, a small frown forms around my mouth. It's time for my knight, no ...her knight in shining armor to depart. A screwed up Cinderella story - not the girl, but the guy, not midnight, but 15:00. But still a hope for a happy ending.

He comes up to me, says a small goodbye and thank you. He asks me if I'll be back tomorrow. With a smile, I say "no, but see you on Wednesday". As he leaves, I turn to face her room and whisper reassuringly to her from far away "he'll be back.", although deep within their souls they probably never ever parted.

Ouch!

Yesterday, I got report from the OR for a patient I was to recover. Apparently, prior to surgery someone inserted a Foley catheter and without checking to see if it's in the bladder, blew up the Foley bulb in the urethra at the prostate. OUCH OUCH OUCH OUCH. They noticed that the Foley wasn't draining, so they flushed it with saline water and it returned bloody. At this point, an urologist was called and they discovered that the Foley was at the prostate rather than in the bladder.

First of all, number one rule is to check for urine return after insertion. Second of all, there must have been an incredible amount of resistance when the Foley bulb was inflated. When I got him, the Foley was draining bloody urine and his penis was wrapped in towels with moderate amount of blood. When I left it was still bleeding out from his penis, alongside of the Foley tube.

I was the unfortunate soul that had to explain to him what had happened. His eyes nearly bulged out of his sockets, but I managed to calm him down and take his mind off of some of the ordeal, although he had a constant sharp pain to his groin area that served as a reminder of the event. A pair of urologists finally came some time during the end of my shift to reassure him that "everything will work as it should". I found a little humor in the fact that the first question the patient asked was will it "work" as it should.

But poor guy... a definite "OUCH".