I worked my first official day shift in 10 years yesterday. As I went into the report room to grab a cup of coffee I was met by the hospital chaplain. Within a few minutes they had managed to herd a handful of us into the room. Then, the breaking news... One of our fellow nurses had very unexpectedly had a stroke that morning. At first she had only paralysis on one site, but as the bleed in her brain got worse she gradually lost consciousness; she was dying. As ICU nurses there was a thousand things we could have done to prolong her life, but nothing we do to save it. We all knew what she would want and so did her family, she died peacefuly only a few hours later.
Of course the entire unit was in a state of shock. Deanna had been a nurse who repeatedly took on the most chronic hopeless patients; the ones who stuck around for months and usually died a very slow and drawn out death. She treated each one of these patients like family, she treated them like they still had hope. I remember one occassion when she arranged for one last flight for a dying Air Force officer. She treated life as it were precious and now in her death has shown us all that it most certainly is. You would think that as nurses we would know that, but somehow it's a little different in the context of our job as opposed to the rest of our lives. I suppose we just learn to compartmentalize?
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