I Don't Want to Die on Christmas

[kizba]

As many of you know, I'm a nurse at the biggest hospital in Utah.

I had to work on Christmas day in the ICU. Every one of the patients there had a worse Christmas than any I've ever had. Especially the patient I was taking care of. He was bleeding in his intestinal track somewhere. It was so bad that he was pooping about half a liter of blood every 30-60 minutes. He was dying and he knew it. I worked my butt off giving him blood to replace what he was losing, but we weren't keeping up. None of the doctors wanted to come in and deal with it becuase it was Christmas.

Finally after about 11 hours of trying to manage the patient, the surgeons came and looked at him. It took about 30 seconds for them to realize that he needed emergency surgery. Unfortunately, the patient is in kidney failure, has heart failure, and his prognosis for surviving a major surgery is very poor. He told me that he didn't want to die on Christmas because it would be hard on his family. It was a lose/lose situation. He'd die without the surgery, but he probably wouldn't survive it either.

As my 12 hour shift ended they were wheeling him off to surgery. I have no idea how things turned out. The patient's one request before getting the operation was to say good-bye to his mother. I had called her as soon as the surgeons had decided to operate but she hadn't gotten to the hospital before they took him. I have no idea if they were able to wait for her to show up.

It was the worst shift I have had so far. I pray that he's okay and that a Christmas miracle happened that night.

Oh, and go give blood if you can this holiday. We gave this guy so much that the hospital actually ran out and had to get more from the Red Cross.

[LQDMTL]

11 hours to be seen by a surgeon. That worries me.

[wocket]

My sister (The Superest Super Nurse of the ER) sends her condolences.

At least he didn't die on your shift. You can now imagine everything going well in the emergency surgery and his mother getting to see him alive afterward. When my sister had a situation like that, the patient died a few hours into her shift (it was the first time one of her patients had died), and she was so distraught she rearended a man on her way home.

[Blaze]

Eeesh... Some of the surgeons around your hospital need to be reminded of the hippocratic oath.

Also: I give blood every 56 days or whatever it is, on the dot. I've already given more than 2 gallons, and I'm not about to stop now. Now, my blood type is common, A+, but the way I figure it, that just means there's more people getting hurt that need that type.

[Tigger]

I wish Aaron and I COULD give blood. They won't take his - not even his plasma. He has a blood disorder, so the blood is no good, but his plasma is fine. The place he went was afraid it would make him anemic - even after he proved that not only would it not make him anemic, it would actually help him. I, on the other hand, have such poor veins that it's very difficult to get blood from me, even when I've prepped for a few days.

[Yira Heerai]

I so would if I could, but I weigh less than 100 lbs and therefore cannot.

I hope he at least managed to make it past midnight. It's horrible when these things happen. The family and the man are in my thoughts and so are you.

[kizba]

So, I just returned to work and learned that the patient ended up refusing the emergency surgery. He said that he was tired of fighting and wanted to die on his own terms in his own way without tons of tubes in him.

He was transfered to the palliative care service and died 12/26 in the afternoon surrounded by his family. Good for him. I think that what bothered me most about this whole situation was that he knew he wasn't going to survive surgery and he didn't want to die like that. This way it happened in a way he was more comfortable with. At least he's at peace now.