Unexpecting the Expected

So I just found out tonight that the patient from This Post from the other day has died.

:-(


Like I said in my prior blog about her case, I kind of had a bad feeling that she just wasn't going to make it......but to accept it as reality? Thats a whole other ball game.


Its this incredibley eerie feeling that literally on Saturday I was taking care of her and by monday she had passed. It happened so fast. On Friday it started with a worrisome wheeze. By Saturday she couldn't breathe. By Sunday she was back in the ICU. And now what bothers me the most is that her husband is alone.

The story that I've heard from other employees is that she wanted to pass. She was mad at her family for even putting her on a breathing machine. She didn't want to die like that, and neither would I. I don't blame her.

It just kills me that such a nice soul, a nice person, had to die in pain. At least she wasn't alone. She had such a wonderful caring husband, by her side for every minute.

It just......feels funny. You know? Although I've had many many many patients that have died in my care before, as an aide, even some where I was the first one to find them passed, some took their last breath in front of me....but this is only my second as an RN. And they were very similar cases. Not similar medically, but similar in the way they both touched my heart. They both taught me something extraordinary. I will never forget.

The weirdest and hardest part is that they weren't even under my direct care upon their passing. I couldn't even hold their hand. And when I did have them under my care, I had no idea that the very hand I was holding would be gone in two days. In fact with both cases, I didn't even find out about the death until a couple of days after. Here I am thinking how they are probably doing much better by now, and then I hear that she passed. Sigh.  She was supposed to get better. She kept telling me how she couldn't wait to just recover from this surgery and get back to normal. Back to normal...

I hope she died in peace with everything. I hope her husband isn't alone.


I know as an RN or any health care personnel, we aren't supposed to get attached...but I can't explain it. Its just a weird feeling. Like nothing me or any of the other nurses did, helped. It was all for nothing because now she's gone. Its a hard gulp to accept, but I will accept it in time. Its part of nursing, all part of the emotional toll.

Like I said, what matters to me most is that I hope her husband is OK. :(


Thanks for reading, with love- ~WNB



.

To Have Said Goodbye

I'm not sure how to say this....life post-Europe has been great. I have been seeing so many friends, old friends, friends, new friends.......I have been with family around the clock, both nuclear and out-of-state family...and this has all been a pretty happy time. But thats the thing. It makes me undeniably nervous. Nauseous.


With the recent *unexpected* passing of my maternal grandmother, it woke me up. That was my first close relative that has passed away....although I am with and around death so much at work and in other parts of my life, I was never a survivor until now.

It woke me up. It made me realize that we truly do take so much for granted, even if we are good people and don't intend to...Sometimes I think we think we are immortal. We forget death happens to all of us. We forget that our loved ones could die any minute, we could face death ourselves tomorrow and not know it. Any of us.

We forget that. Because its morbid, and depressing....But then the unexpected happens and we are left with not even being able to say goodbye.


This all has made me so jumpy, so anxious, so nervous....that I am going to lose more. If I lost my grandmother, I could lose my other grandmother too. I could lose my father who has a suspicious family history of heart disease. I could lose a close friend. It really has made me realize how fragile everyone is. How fragile I am.

I went to spend a week with my paternal grandmother this past week. Its been a long-due visit....and it shouldnt have been. I should be seeing her all the time. And with my maternal grandmother passing, it has motivated me to just drive out to see her and just....spend time with her. She tells me all the time when I am with her that she feels "guilty" that she is not "entertaining" me, but she doesn't even know that all I want is to just be around her.

With this newfound anxiety and feeling like I could lose it all in a second, I have been acting weird. I am trying so much harder to mentally-record special moments with loved ones I am afraid of losing....and when I can't rely on mental, I have been taking pictures with her too. Just savoring moments, taking it all in in case I have to remember it all tomorrow. Its eerie. I don't like being like this....but is it necessary, sometimes?

Everything happens for a reason. I firmly believe and know that. As unfortunate as it was, my grandmothers death happened for a reason....but what reason?

I guess we aren't always meant to know for what reason, but a reason there is. We just have to have faith.


I said earlier in my blog after it had just happened, that it didn't feel real. That I still expected to see her when I travelled next to North Carolina. To talk to her on the phone, still. To see a comment on one of my pictures on facebook from her. That her death was just a hiccup in her health and it was a quick hospital visit, but she's ok now. I'll see her. But thats not true, and Its starting to settle in now. For my mom and my aunt, they have both expressed it "settling in" when they call their house and their father will never more say, "Let me go get mom".

For me, it has hit in unexpected ways. The other day I browsed through my phone contacts and realized I had my grandmothers cell phone number saved. Did I ever even call it? Just to talk? Also, I was just viewing my blog followers and realized she registered as a blog follower, quite some time ago, so she could receive emails when I post. Its those little reminders that punch you in the stomach.

I feel extremely sad that she was so excited for me to be able to go to Europe...and she only got to see a few blogs. It kills me that she couldn't even have seen a single picture. If I had known, I would have made more of an effort to get pictures up for her to see.....but who ever knows? You can't live your life with the "If I had known...." racing through your negative thoughts. You didn't know. I didn't know. But I know now, and maybe the "reason" for it all is to make me stronger and to realize for the future how fragile life truly is, and to savor every breath, every moment. Say goodbye to people as if you won't see them again, tell them how much you love them. Every time you see them...


As a conclusion to this eerie post, I leave you with an eerie finding. A week or so I stumbled across one of my county college's literature book that I have been published several times in, back in the day. The following poem is a poem I wrote back in 2006, to express the heartbreak of loss. Losing someone close to you. How that feels. It just seemed fitting that I just happened to stumble across it again, now. Like I wrote it for the future almost.....


"To Say Goodbye"

It's Learning
                    To say goodbye.
                                  To look through this fine print,
And see, eye for eye, the impact that has hit.
                    To say goodbye,
Is learning
                    That this is the hardest part of dying.
It's not the pain that comes with it....
                     Not the physical pain.
                                      It's the tearing.
                                                 The Ripping Away,
                                                          At an innocent heart.
                                                                             Innocent?

It's an Anger,
                        masking an inevitable sadness.
                                                           A fear.
                                                           A Hope.
A dream.

                                                           A truth.

It's pretending to be angry, so you don't have to;
                                Cry,
                                Let go.
An anger,
                For leaving us here.
                             For giving up.
                                         For seeing the light.
                                                     Without us.

For knowing that in the end, they chose death,
                     rather than pain.
                                             They chose heaven.
                                             They turned down life.
                                                           A change.
                                                           A chance?

An anger. A frustration.
                You should have stopped them.
                You should have been there.
You didn't say goodbye....So much anger.
You think about it,
                 over and over and over again.
        What could have gone differently?

Would it have been wrong to have asked you to stay?
                                Because of a need?
                                An inability to let go?
                                                    to say goodbye?
A fear?
             Of being alone?


One more chance......

                                     .....to say goodbye.



I love you Grandma. Miss you. Miss your smile.



~A Writer in a Nurse's Body




                         

WAKE UP CALL

WORLD CLOCK



Oh my God, Guys.....

I have been waiting for something like this. I used to think, I wonder if there is like...some sort of thing....out there...that counted, second by second, how many births were happening or deaths at that very moment, and our world population.....

Not only does this do that but it counts how much the military is spending, second by second. How much oil we are using, second by second. How many people are dying from cardiovascular disease, injuries, war accidents, traffic accidents......

Or you can switch to how much this year, how much this month, day, NOW.........


Oh my. Ive always wanted to see this but MAN is this a WAKE UP call! This is so scary!!

The Numbers just keep going UP!! What are we going to do! Holy crap.  This is scary.

I seriously want to check out more of the site. Just this part alone I could stare at for hours. The rest of the site looks interesting too......

Oh my, guys....what are we going to do ?

World Clock

UPDATE:

I am adding a World Clock to my blog, to the right, in case you havent already noticed.....just scroll your mouse further to the right to see the numbers.....let me know if you are having trouble viewing this, and I will try and move it around the page. SCARY!