A little Bit about Death

A patient of mine died tonight. 

I've had other patients die before. I have... but the thing is, I was ready for it. They were ready for it. They came here where I work, to die. Tonight, someone that wasn't waiting for it, was greeted by death. It's taken me a few hours for the realization that he's gone, to sink in. My stomach actually hurts. Everything just happened in a crazy blurred tornado.

Finding him unconscious, calling a nurse, him performing CPR. *my adrenaline spiking* The MA calling 911, me standing in a stupor of idiocy watching this man die and wanting to do more. Grab the vitals cart, grab his chart, call his wife, his daughter, no answer. Frantically search for his DNR record, can't find it, he's a full code. EMT arrive, lots of them, cops, other curious patients. Nothing like death to draw in a crowd.

Questions, running, searching, watching, running, watching, just watching.... so this is what death is like. One minute you're there asking for water because you can't get enough to drink and the next....you're gone. Just. Gone.

Was he watching us there? Trying to revive his lifeless body? I don't know if I'd watch if it were me. I'd be looking for the people I love or visiting the living people I'll miss and saying goodbye however my spirit could.

After the ambulance rushed his body away and the audience left, I went back into his room to clean. I washed, I pushed back tears, and I thought. I thought about a TV show I like. Scrubs. I thought about the first time that the main character encountered death, he said something like, "The one thing I felt, was guilt, about how hard this was for me."

His death was hard for me. It was hard for me to realize that that was it. It was done. It was hard for me to see him like that. They were so rough with his body when they did CPR and eventually intubated him. It is even hard now to realize that somewhere a family has been changed forever.

I can only pray with all my heart that the last few hours of his life under my care were good ones. I hope that somewhere his family is being comforted. I know I am comforted by the knowledge that he lived a long life. I hope it was mostly good for him. I am comforted to know that what he has beyond this life is much better. He went home.

And now I just hope I can recover quickly from losing him, because my heart hurts.  

Now that was an experience.

Ok, are you ready for this? This is a moment I will never forget, especially now that I've typed it down. Sometimes working at elderly care facilities leads to some great stories. Here is a story I had to share with you all. Obviously for the sake of the patients involved and HIPPA, I will be giving them fake names. Also, this happened in like the past 8 months.

So one night while at work there was an incident. I'm honestly not surprised that it happened. I mean, what can someone expect when two dementia patients are put in the same room to sleep where their sun-downing can explode full steam! * Sun-downing: when a patient who has Alzheimers or dementia becomes more agitated, confused, angry, or combative only at night.*

We had Francine in bed, she actually is independent enough to put herself to bed no trouble for us. Side-note, most of my patients walk a bit slumped over if they're actually walking, so it's no surprise to me that Francine also walks a bit slumped over. Tonight she went to bed and then Patty, her roommate went to bed, but first Patty decided to figure out why all these people were in her house.

She marched over to Francine's bed and sat down on it and started to swear and curse at her. Francine, completely asleep, flew out of bed in terror! Streaked across her room, slightly hunched over and then booked it out of her room. By this time, anyone in range had come running.

"There's a woman in my bed!" She yelled. I honestly did not believe her at the time. I mean.... come on, she has dementia. Rude I know. But I appeased her and walked in to see the "woman" on her bed. And lo and behold there she was, Patty, crazy eyes, and all.

This is when I began, with a few other CNAs, to attempt to reason with Patty. She sat on the bed, her brow furrowed in deep anger and ranted, "Look at you! You're young." She points to a CNA and then points to a few others. "You're young! You're young! What are all you kids doing in my house!" she raged, "If your parents were here, would you be here?!"

I calmly replied, "Patty, we'd all be here. You invited us."

She didn't take the bait, "Like hell I did!" I guess letting her live in her reality wasn't going to work this time, but I still pressed on.

"Patty, you told us we could stay here. You told her...." pointing to Francine, "that she could stay here too and you're being rude to your guests."

She didn't care, but at least she got off Francine's bed, yelling once more, "Like hell I did!" She then decided to shoo us rough-ians out of her 'house'. Her little body, quickly shuffled across the floor, her arms flapped in the air at us, eyes bugged out of her incredibly wrinkled head. It was at this moment that I had to try really hard not to laugh as I dodged her frail, swinging arms. Eventually we just ignored Patty, and stayed out of her range. We went back and tried to convince Francine to go back to bed and that we'd do our best to keep Patty out of her side of the room. She listened. . . . although, she probably shouldn't have.

The hype calmed down for about 20 minutes. Francine was back in bed resting and Patty finally went to her bed to what we thought was sleep. We..... were wrong.

It turned out that Patty was not done tormenting her roommate. Francine ran out of her dark room again claiming this time that Patty was standing over her bed staring at her. Creepy!!!


"I don't have a roommate! What the *$%#@ is she doing in here!?" Patty shrieked.

"You had a roommate last night, you idiot, how can you forget that!?" Francine yelled at her. Ironic coming from her, the woman that forgets everything....just like her roommate.

Patty just gave Francine the look of death and starting incoherently yelling again.

"Francine, why don't we find you another room to stay in. That way you can sleep tonight and not be bothered by anyone," the nurse assured her. She put her arm around Francine and walked her down the dark hallway to another room. As we followed her, one of the CNAs turned around, drawing my attention to what he was looking at.

It was Patty, now standing in the dark doorway of her room at the end of the dark hallway. Hunched over. Insanely wrinkled. Crazy bug eyes. And silent. She slowly closed the door, peeking out until it closed entirely.

The CNA who looked back at her started laughing. It was contagious and soon we were all laughing! Mostly from being tired and easily amused. Seeing her close that door was straight out of a horror movie.

Francine was not amused. We tried to get her into another room, but she was not going to sleep with a roommate. After I left they put her in the empty doctors' office and let her sleep there.

Apparently Patty is not very good with roommates because since this incident. She has been moved three times. First time for terrorizing roommates. Second for stealing roommates belongings and hiding their stuff under her bed and the third for just plain being naughty.

oh man.... sometimes I love my job.