The thing is they aren't always OK.
A couple of hours into the visit things change and they go from talking to unresponsive. Now they are dying. Sometimes things happen that fast.
That person who was talking to their son an hour is now going to die. There is nothing anyone can do. Somestimes things are out of our hands even in this world of sophisticated treatments and machinery. They are useless.
This person will die today. They didn't know this was their day to die. A series of events happened to bring them to this. No one expected this to happen today. Certainly, not me, their nurse who greeted them when they arrived by ambulance. Certainly not their son who arrived to be with them. You just never know.
3 comments:
You just never know--truer words have not been spoken. I have lost a baker's dozen siblings, family members, patients, colleagues, and a grandson in less than four years. Like my sister's unexpected death at 49 of a PE opened a fucking dam of doom and it just hasn't stopped. Every few months another person I know and love dies unexpectedly. out of that thirteen only ONE was anticipated. An elderly woman with lung cancer, but she's the only one that wasn't a surprise and a shock.
You just never know-huh ?~!
I'm always wary of trauma or any kind of severe illness when people say hey they seem great considering what's going on cause it usually is the calm before the storm. First trauma a did with my preceptor in ED was a teenager girl from a rollover...looked great seemed great not really a scratch on her not even where the seatbelt was mom came and she had been complaining of pain but it was getting worse at first they thought teenage girl parents in she's being more dramatic after all surgeon cleared her right? She was really only being admitted for observation. Long story short the pain continued the older nurses realized she was not just being dramatic to the OR she went for what I believe was 10 hours of surgery for numerous perforations to her bowels. Lesson learned by me keep a close eye on the sick ones and even closer on the one whose great considering!
Ugh. These cases are the worst. Just now getting past the "I should have been able to do something" guilt after 3 years.
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