So I have a patient...his name is D....I just found out two weeks ago D was a doctor way back when not medical doctor but doctor of something...D is dying. actively dying if I may say so...I also know Ds wife Lady S..so I met Lady S when D was fist admiited to the floor a few months ago...Lady S is always in to visit with D every day and everytime she comes to stand at my cart and give me a whole spill on how she has noticed something new on D - he seems to be jerking a lot today he seems to be clapping a lot today..."Side effects of the meds his on for the Parkinsons" I tell lady S tommorrow he comes in he seems to be happy today he is responding....and on and on we go day in day out...sometimes it gets annoying when she interrupts you in teh mdidle of a med pass but other times all she needs is someone to listen to her...So a few days ago D started declining and declining fast - bloody urine not eating temps in the 100s.I tell the aides the care they will give D the next few days will be the most important care they have ever given him in all the while he has been here,I tell them to go in there hold his hand talk to him tell him what they are doing before they turn him...so yesterday I picked up a double shift to stay through the night...just before lady S leaves for the night she whispers tommorrow is my birthday please dont tell anyone.I wish her a happy birthday as I give D a look in my head thinking...D you better not die on me and Lady S tonight on her birthday.She sings songs to D that they used to sing together she tells me how they used to hold hands as they sung the songs and danced - how he would always say her singing was beautiful even though she knows her voice has a missing cord or two - her face turns pink filled with so much fond memories..I turn away to blink away the tears and she leaves......So I keep checking on D through the night he is still there - temps still up the roof, periods of no breathing for a good two minutes which made me say okay this is it until I hear that deep snore again.... I stay with him a while wondering where his soul is - is he trying to make it through to his wifes birthday? he makes it through the night...I pray his wife will get to see him today...I leave and go home D made it to Lad S ninetieth birthday I wonder if he will be there when I get on shift tommorrow....like I said just another day in teh factory....
The moral test of a government is how it treats those in the dawn of life the infants and children, those in the twilight of life the elderly, and those in the shadows of life the sick teh needy and the handicapped - Hubert H Humphrey..
Addendum to note:
Soooo just as an addition to my little story up here...so remember Dr. D....well he died.I was in the middle of shift report and the chaplain comes into the room and says we need a nurse to pronounce.So we went in there with the morning nurse shut the door and immediately we saw him we knew he had gone.The beautiful part was his wife Lady S was right by his bedside as she had said she wanted to be when he passed away.The chaplaian told me they were singing all his favorite church hymns and the love songs they used to dance and sing to with the wife and as soon as they were done they looked at him and he was gone...he liyeally slipped into the after life in such peace with his wife by his side...and he waited until the day after her birthday wow this thing called life..
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