Topics About 'Death And Dying'.

It reminds me of the query "what came first, the chicken or the egg." Do you become a good nurse because of your life experience, or does your life experience make you a good nurse? I just don't know. What follows is a bare rough draft of my feelings...

School taught me everything I know. School taught me the delicate balance of life, how to be A FIXER. Fix problems and help patients achieve a better way of life. A patient, Lucy would teach me an entire new way of thinking...and fixing. I received L...

It seemed like it was going to be just another usual Sunday night on our med/surg floor where I work as a tech prior to starting nursing school in the fall. A 3-11 shift doesn't include baths, but if the patient is incontinent of the bowel, there's a...

It was the end of Nurses' week 2007; I had just parked in the North garage and was heading toward the hospital. I walked down the short set of stairs leading to the cobblestone path in front of me. I looked towards the West, drawn by the unusual oran...

Over a few months, we had a rash of cancer patients on our ward. The time period was somewhere in the early 1990s. We had many end-stage patients, most were elderly. But there was one young woman I will never forget. She was in her early 30's. She wa...

This is the story of "Baby", the nickname his family gave him so affectionately. He was born in the month of September 1995. He was born with Myotubular Myopathy; he was very "floppy" and had difficulty breathing on his own. He was immediately shippe...

This essay has turned out to be one of the most difficult ones I’ve ever written and, hopefully, will ever have to write. It has been difficult not only because it requires ruminating on the devastation that is the Coronavirus Disease 2019, but also...

There are some things for which school prepares you. How to spike an IV bag, how to administer standard medications as scheduled; how to make the perfect care plan. Yet nursing is not about the perfect care plan, and although one can, as a nurse, pri...

Hospice: A New DirectionNow I wasn't just stepping back into a direct care role on "the floor" of Med/Surg. No, I took a role as a field nurse in an area considered taboo by even the best nurses. Most nurses cringe when hearing that name with the usu...

They sat huddled outside the room, three chairs facing the glass doors, an isolation cart as a makeshift table for the boxes of tissues. We had turned his head to face the door side of the room before the scheduled two hour head turn, so they wouldn'...

I began my practice as a hospice RN in 1996. At that time the facility was seated in a pocket of the Midwest where "hospice" was not often spoken. I worked for a small hospice that had a census of eight (yes, you read that right-more staff than patie...

One night as I was the charge nurse and the ER nurse all rolled into one, I received a call from the front desk that I had a patient in the car downstairs and I needed to open the ambulance door so I could get him into the ER. As I ran down, I was wo...

How much time? She looked up at me with pleading eyes, her head resting on a freshly laundered pillow case and her hair, still damp, laid out against the white expanse to dry. Her voice was firm as she asked the question that was on her mind. Tak...

The call came in while at work. My mom's brother Steve had been rushed to a hospital. He was dying. I decided to go on the weekend when I was off, as my partner at work was out sick. I flew into Canada and made my way to the hospital. My aunt, a reti...

This is something that’s been on my mind for a little while now. I’ve been hearing recently how what nurses are being exposed to is just part of the job. Death is part of the job that’s true, but that doesn’t change the toll it takes. Seven years lat...

When I finally called and told my in-laws that I was six-and-a-half months pregnant with a baby boy, they were over the moon! I had lost two babies as miscarriages before my son and daughter were born, so I was wary of breaking the news early. We dec...

So my usual morning routine goes like this: print my report sheet, and start putting in my little boxes for med times, assessments, etc (yes, I'm the OCD nurse), while I wait for the night nurses to be ready for report. Get a face-to-face report from...

Death came to visit Friday, it was not kind, and it was not peaceful for my friend's mom-it was hard, she struggled so much, her mind was ready, but her body fought her to the bitter end; causing trauma to her loved ones who stayed by her side so she...

I remember the day we went to the oncologist with my father. The doctor came in said hello, and before he finished sitting down, he had delivered the bombshell, "you have less than 6 months to live." I remember being so angry at him, and me the meek ...

I can remember countless hours of video games (he'd decide on one as his favorite, and play it incessantly for months, encouraging the family to join him), the fights, the talks... but what stands out most is the fact that he always looked up to me. ...

I took a seat on the kitchen chair that the daughter brought in. Pulling it up to the double bed, I tried to get close to my patient, a woman nearing the end of her battle with gastric cancer. She tried to return my smile, and I squeezed her hand as ...

Eighteen days. That's how long it took to lose you. Surrounded by four walls, no windows. No healing touch from loved ones. No last kisses or hugs. Unable to hear your infectious laugh because it was covered by a mask. Your family anxiously waiting o...

The First Patient I arrived in the unit the other day and got my assignment. First patient is COVID positive on the ventilator, about a week into the intubation. A gentleman in his 70s who was vaccinated in April. He was intubated at another hosp...

"What's wrong with death sir? What are we so mortally afraid of? Why can't we treat death with a certain amount of humanity and dignity, and decency, and God forbid, maybe even humor. Death is not the enemy gentlemen." (Patch Adams, 1998.) As we all ...

Baby Cherish arrived at the unit on a Winter afternoon via medical transport in a flat car seat bed belted securely to a gurney that looked way too big for tiny 5-pound little self. We had been preparing for her arrival to the unit well before her bi...