Hospice
Judy Licon's discussions
The "H" Word
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Started this discussion. Last reply by Jim Vernon Sep 22.
The Death of Innocents
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Started this discussion. Last reply by Sam Oliver May 2.
Judy Licon's Page
Profile Information
- About Me:
- Registered Nurse, working in Home Health care
- My Philosophy:
- Life is a process; death is part of that process. It is a very personal time and different for everyone. I celebrate God's healing powers in everyone's life--and death. Sometimes we blame God for "taking" someone we love when actually I believe He is "delivering" them from their suffering.
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Jeni
I remember "the beginning" as if it happened yesterday. In reality, it was more than thirty years ago. It was a beautiful spring day, full of hope after a winter of tule fog. My group traveled 20 miles to the small town where we would begin our clinical experience the next day.
Within the hour, we were all settled in: interviewing the patients we were assigned to care for on the next clinical day. Questions that are now quite mundane for me were, to say the least, very monumental then. I think I wrote down every word my patient uttered.
After about an hour, I walked out of the patient's room to review his chart--again. As I walked past the next room, I heard Mitch's voice: "Judy, come help me!" I rushed in the room, heart in my throat, to find my friend Mitch struggling to get his patient to talk to him. He said something about how they had been talking and laughing--the patient was in his 20's, like Mitch--and then he suddenly stopped talking to Mitch.
I ran to the nurses' station. A male nurse was sitting there, all alone, apparently reviewing a chart. I called to him several times: he did not look up or respond. Finally, he decided to look up at this dumb nursing student who was bothering him. After I excitedly told him what was happening to Mitch's patient, he calmly told me that that was not HIS patient and I needed to go down this other, empty hallway looking for his nurse. "But we need help NOW" I responded.
After a melodramatic roll of his eyes, he slowly moved in the direction of the patient's room. The absolute minute he saw the patient, he yelled "code blue" and pushed some button on the wall. Within seconds, the room was full of medical people, doctors, nurses, respiratory staff, etc. Within a couple of minutes, the physician who was now directing the code ordered: "let's get him to ICU!"
The door to the ICU was a straight shot down the hallway, approximately 30 yards from the patient's room. I will never forget watching the staff wheel the patient, in his bed, down that long corridor, moving as fast as the bed, the hallway, and the IV pole would let them.
They stopped just as they were approaching the ICU door. The physician placed a hand on the patient's neck momentarily, then announced: "it's over."
Mitch was a basket case. This young man he had just met, talked to, and laughed with was now dead. Of course, as a new nursing student, Mitch was SURE he was responsible. No amount of coaching and counseling from our instructor would change his mind.
We drove the long road home in complete silence. Within a month, Mitch quit the nursing program. The burden was too much to bear--and truly not his to bear. The patient was injured in a motorcycle accident: his femur was broken and he passed a fat embolism--straight to his heart. No intervention could have saved him. As a seasoned nurse, I understand this; as a nursing student, I was devastated for both the patient and my friend, Mitch.
Over the last 30 years, I have had many, many opportunities to work with nursing students. I have never forgotten how terrifying it was to be a new nurse, and I have never forgotten Mitch's patient. Nursing students are to be listened to, helped, comforted, and appreciated: they are our future! It really is a good deal: I give them knowledge and techniques gathered over three decades of practice, and they renew my enthusiasm for my chosen profession.