Am I worrying too much???

[hayhay12]

Hello everyone! I'm new to this forum, so I'll try to do my best to make this thread as "understandable" as possible!!!

Patient with COPD + a 10 mile list of other diagnoses! Normal sats are between 92-93% on 2L continuous O2.

Sunday: Found O2 sats were sort of doing this roller coaster thing and would de-sat to 85% and then go back up to 92%, all in a matter of 10 minutes. NO apparent respiratory distress, patient stated they were fine, no SOB, all other VSS. Read in previous nurses notes this had happened a week prior, MD was called, no new orders were given.

Gave patient a nebulizer treatment, O2 sat held steady at 92% for the next hour. Notified MD who was on call for this patient's doc, MD stated everything seemed to be in order, "She has COPD, it's bound to happen". This was at the end of my shift, so I gave the oncoming RN this report and also documented in nurse's notes.

Side note: Patient is DNR.

This patient died Thursday, I don't know details because I haven't been to work yet.

So now to my question!!! I'm feeling for some reason like there was something else I could have done, even though everything was in order and the patient was objectively/subjectively stable. Would you have done anything differently???

[Esme12, ASN, BSN, RN]

Sounds like you did everything just fine. People will die no matter how good we are......it just happens. It's their time.

You recognized there was a problem, you acted, you notified the MD, the patient returned to baseline.

Sometime people just die and that's OK.....:hug: Good job!

[RNChristy]

I agree with Esme12. You did everything correctly and I would not have done anything differently. Sometimes, no matter what we do, this is still going to be the outcome. We just try to do our best.

Christy

[Been there,done that, ASN, RN]

It's hard to watch patients with chronic lung diseases die.

As the patient was already a DNR, it sounds like it was expected.

In this case, the best you can do is keep them comfortable.

[Amanda.RN]

You did everything you could. You certainly should not be questioning if there was something more you could/should have done.

[tokmom, BSN, RN]

I'm assuming they did ABG and a CXR and everything inbetween to cover their butts?

Sometimes no matter what you find and do, the pt will still pass away. As nurses though, I think we play the guilt game withourselves, always thinking we could do so much more.