I was working on a telemetry unit and went in to assess the lung sounds of my patient who was on bed rest. I asked him if he could roll onto his side so that I could put my stethoscope to his back to listen. He complied. It was not long before I heard no lung sounds. I asked him to take a deep breath ... soon after another nurse came to me to tell me that at the nursing station the monitor showed a flatline. The patient was a DNR so no Code Blue was in order.It was not long before I was in tears and blaming myself for the patient dying. A well-seasoned nurse asked me if this was the first time I had "lost a patient". She knew. That was about 20 years ago. Since then I have come to a place with myself of understanding that what the other nurse said was true. This changed my life gradually as time went on as would be expected. People are human. The only thing certain in life is death and taxes.One day, years later, I was working at a nursing home. I had several CNAs who worked with me on a regular basis. They were young and as luck would have it none of them had ever experienced the death of a patient. In long-term care, there is much more time to get attached to someone that one takes care of and thus making the situation a bit more complicated. So that day was their first experience. They were crying and falling apart. I really needed them all as, of course, there were many other residents there who needed us as well. I called them for a meeting to regroup. We had to pull ourselves together as a team to deal with the emotions of the family as well as for the needs of the other residents. I explained to them that if they were going to work in the healthcare field, it was more than likely this would not be their last experience with this type of situation. I shared with them ...my story. My story of my first time. I explained how over time it would not be so difficult to deal with and it comes with experience.The next day there was an article in the newspaper that told of a woman who shared my name. She found her husband in her garage pinned under a car he was working on. Her husband did not make it. I did not read the article, nor was I aware of it in any way. There was a lot of whispering going on amongst the CNAs. Finally, one of them pulled me aside and said: "we know that you handle death better than us but at least you could have taken a day off to grieve". They were all whispering about how if a person was in healthcare long enough there was probably nothing that would bother them.It is something I will never forget. It was not even me. I tried to explain it to them, but I have a feeling some of them had their doubts. They were very young and impressionable. It truly was not me. As a matter of fact, there were three people in the area with my exact name.No, I will never forget that one. About mayagoose 5 Posts Share this post