It was a normal shift. I started out with the typical two patients. One stable and one not so much.
My not-so-stable patient was a 50-something guy with a wife and 4 kids. He had a massive ischemic stroke from an unknown origin last night. He was intubated and his neuro exam was so poor that he didn't even need to be sedated. He only had minimal reflexes. His wife sat at his bedside, utterly broken. She looked to me for any glimmer of hope and I had none to give her.
My second neuro check was worse than my first. I tried to have my nursey poker face on, but she saw right through it. I immediately called the doctor. An emergency craniotomy for decompression and bone flap removal was in our very near future.
When the doctor quickly came by to tell her what needed to happen or he would become brain dead soon, she lost what little grip she had on her sanity. She became inconsolable and walked away because she just couldn't take it anymore.
I asked my charge to watch my patient while I looked for her. I found her huddled on the floor in the bathroom, sobbing uncontrollably.
I wanted to sit next to her and console her for a while, but time was a factor. We were getting ready to hit the OR in a matter of minutes. I had to get her to pull it together and FAST.
First, I hugged her while she sobbed snot onto my scrubs for about two minutes. I told her I was so, so sorry while she cried. I then looked her in her eyes and said, "Hey, you can do this. He needs you right now. He needs you to be strong for him right now. You can do this. And I will be there with you the entire time."
With tears in her eyes, she said, "okay".
"This is what we are going to do, okay?" I said.
"I'm going to walk with you back to the unit. We're going to talk to the anesthesiologist and answer some important questions. We're going to call your son and let him know he's going to surgery now and that everyone needs to get here and meet you in the waiting room. I'm going to pack him up and we're going to take him down stairs. All three of us will ride down the elevator to the OR together. You'll give him some good smooches and I'll take him back. I'll be there with you every step of the way."
She pulled it together. She blew her nose one more time, dried her eyes, and held her head high. "Okay, let's go," she said, as we walked out of the bathroom.
She answered the anesthesiologist's questions and we started packing him up. I could tell it was taking every ounce of strength she had not to hop in that bed with him.
As we were making our turn to the OR, I told her to get some smooches in. I tried with all I had in me not to cry as I watched her sob into his shoulder and smear tears all over his cheek.
He came back to my unit after surgery and didn't look so great.
By the end of the shift, I was taking him to hospice.
After I extubated him and gave report to the hospice nurse taking over, she sobbed as she said goodbye to me. I wanted to get out of there before he died because after the last 12 hours, I don't think I could have taken that and still gone back to the unit to take care of my other patient.
I'll never forget her. I'll never forget the strength she had summoned from deep inside of her to get herself out of that bathroom. That kind of strength she had to find underneath those tears she was crying; the kind of tears that make your throat burn. I pray that if I'm in that situation, I'll be able to find it. I think that I could because she showed me it was possible.
And as I said my goodbye to her and told her I was praying for her, my phone in my pocket buzzed.
After I walked out of the room, I checked it and saw that I got a text from my coworker.
"You're up for the next admission and report is on the phone."
