I work in an LTC and I recently had a patient that is elderly (frail, 91 but able to ambulate, communicate, eat, and toilet self) with several disease processes, none of which are necessarily life threatening. Patient is a DNR. I found my resident in respiratory distress to the tune of foaming at the mouth, cyanotic, unresponsive to painful stimulation and literally "gurgling" there was so much fluid overload. Patient is a DNR. I set her up, get help, we get things handled, call the MD who says I have to call her family. Family wants her taken to hospital and they override the DNR. EMS is called, they whisk her away. She was gone about two weeks. She came back just before my shift on Thursday. Basically a vegetable. No speech, no comprehension, suffered a stroke, barely a shell of the person she was. Before I left this morning I saw her and I swear she looked at me like she was begging "why didn't you let me go??" My heart is broken. She is now total care, won't eat, weak beyond belief and truly just looks so sad. Did you ever just wonder if maybe you should let them go? I honestly believe that had I not intervened she would have been gone in less than 10 minutes. Now I feel like I have sentenced her to the prison of her broken body.
