christ666's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- .......stories Tonight was strange on the hospital front. I was very irritable with the staff for their stupid questions and their imposing body space, but overall I can't fault them too much without sounding like a prima donna. On top of the edge, I'm stuck in a room with alarming monitors; bells and whistles ringing from the left and the right and won't relent until I silence them with the click of the mouse or tap from my finger on the monitor. But those weren't the strange things. What was strange was how sudden three of our patients started crapping out. One started tanking so we pierced is torso with chest tubes and finally intubated him, a regular has finally been prognosed terminally and will be sent home on hospice, and lastly, we just had a patient with no signs of neuro abnormalities, stroke in the past twenty minutes. Also weird, while this is going on... I'm looking for strange entries and ads on Craigslist. I don't think I ever felt emotionally attached to death in the hospital, and I always felt weird about that. Perhaps it's because I never had a close family member die until my grandmother passed away a few years ago. Sometimes I'd find a few heartstrings tugged when I'd see the reactions of some family members grieving for their loved ones. What's worse is when a family member won't admit to an upcoming expiration. I remember wanting to write about my last week with my grandmother before she passed away, but ultimately opted against it because I felt there was nothing to be said. I think enough time is gone by that I think I feel okay talking about it. Not that it was anything too traumatic, I think I just didn't want to seem desperate for attention or exploiting my grandmother's death for an interesting entry. I don't feel that would be the case now, as far as exploits go... but I do think the week was interesting. It developed new layers and emotions amongst family members, and I think a lot of things changed. If I remember correctly, I was an hour or two into my shift at work when I got a call from my grandmother stating she was having real troubles breathing. I had been visiting my granmother on occasion during her hospital visits and my sister, Jody, and me were at times the ones who tended to obtain the new information about her complications from cancer, and we'd explain it to other family members. I, myself, had regularly been giving my grandma shots of Heparin about every other day, so I think those things made her want to call me. Naturally, I wanted to bring her in the ER and my charge nurse released me without hesitation, which I'm grateful for. Long story short, fluid had gathered around her lungs and was compressing them to the point where she couldn't breathe. This had happened her previous visit, so we hadn't anticipated a different scenario. It became clear later on that things weren't the same as her doctor, one that I've worked with on occasion, bluntly stated to me that this was probably the time to start anticipating the worst. I remember around this point that my grandpa tried having a conversation to me about my grandma not relenting to admission to the hospital or to treatments and saying she was stupid. Though, it seemed that he was imply stubborn, but interchanged the words. We were right in the middle of the hallway of the ER in front of the nurses, and his voice started to raise as he was trying to get his point accross. I told him to walk with me and we continued the conversation outside of public view. I'll finish the story tomorrow, I'm going home now. 6:33 a.m. - 2012-02-28 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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