Boys Boys Boys. . .

~Sept, 2012
We had some visitors over and of course A and E were bouncing off the walls. Head butting their legs, jumping on their back and freaking out. So I chucked them both in the kitchen and told them, "You are out of control." Angrily A turns to me, hands on his hips and snaps, "No Mom! YOU are out of control!"

~Aug. 2012
A comes up to me and tells me very officially, "Mom, I'm smarter than you. I'm not smarter than Dad, but I am smarter than you."

~July 4th, 2012
A and E were wrestling today and it was A's day. He was doing really good keeping his little brother subdued, although E put up a pretty good fight. Once they were finished, Daddy and I told E he did a really good job! He looked over at Daddy M angrily from the floor and said, "No, I din not!!" he flailed his arms on the ground and continued, "He's still alive!"

~June 2012
E and A were playing T-ball today with A's new gear. I of course laid down the rules. No hitting anyone with the bat. No swinging at the ball until every body and body part is clear. Simple enough. Not 5 minutes into it, I hear a blood curdling scream from A. E runs inside, eyes big, and says, "I din'n know what I was doing!" Big brother had a pretty good goose egg on his head.

Thanks for the Help

As most of you are aware, we're trying really hard to maintain our privacy on here, so if you can remember when you comment, to not use our real names if you know them, that would be great!

Thursday, August 11, 2011

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.  

2 comments:

Meredith Williams said...

Whoa! What an experience! I bet you didn't leave for work thinking something like that would happen. It really puts life in perspective when things like that happen

KC Dumas said...

Crazy... makes you step back from a lot of things and think about lift a little more clearly.