of charting. That's all it took to sum up the death of my 89-year-old patient yesterday, a man with dementia and Parkinson's disease who came in with a colon full of stool and a little, old, bent-over wife named Lenora.
He'd been in so much pain, and the morphine was helping only a little......and then I'd had to go in there and give him MOM, Miralax, and two enemas which relieved only part of the obstruction. Lenora, meanwhile, sat there and held his hand through it all, talking him through the procedures and even encouraging me: "It's OK, dear, I know you're doing what you have to so he can feel better".
Finally, she went home with her family a couple of hours later, after he'd lapsed into a fitful sleep.....I got a wheelchair for her as she was too tired to walk downstairs, and promised her that I'd take good care of her husband of almost 70 years.
I checked on him throughout the afternoon, medicating him a couple of times when he groaned, watching his respirations as he slept, but otherwise allowing him to rest after the rigors of the morning. It was right at six o'clock when I went in to tally his I & O for the shift that I found him, lifeless and cold.....I knew without even checking for a pulse that he was gone. He appeared to be at peace, as though death had come not as an enemy, but as a comforting friend; still, my first thought after the initial shock was, "But I promised his wife!"
God, obviously, had other plans for this man, and since He knows best, I said a prayer for the repose of his soul and began the post-mortem ritual of notifying the physician and the nursing supervisor, preparing the body, and then calling the family. As I did these tasks, I wondered who this elderly gentleman had been........had he been happy as a boy? Had he fought in the war? How many children had he had? Was he a good husband and father? What kind of work had he done? I wished I knew these things......
I sat down to document what must surely be the second most important passage of a person's life, and it struck me as sad that the event could be described so simply......almost ninety years of what must have been a productive life, reduced to seven lines of dry medical descriptions in black ink on a piece of yellow paper. Yet I knew, even as I wrote, that this was meant to remind me that, however insignificant an individual may be in God's infinite universe, it's not how one dies that matters......it's whether he or she loves, and is loved by others.
And I was reminded again of how we, as nurses, are privileged to be part of our patients' and their families' lives........even in death. We see it all.......people of every shape and color and creed, at their worst moments and their best.......and we are given the sacred trust of caring for the patient even after the soul takes flight, preparing his body for its final rest, and providing support for those he leaves behind.
Just a few thoughts on a hot summer's day, when the world is bright and Heaven has just welcomed its newest resident. :)
