Read Online Opening My Heart by Tilda Shalof - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Tilda Shalof
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maybe that’s just what we remember best.
“Do the math,” said a friend, another old-timer who’s worked here twenty-five-plus years like me. “We’ve witnessed the equivalent of the death of an entire town.”
True, but it’s not the numbers that stay with you, it’s the stories. For most of us, it’s not the death, but the way many people die, spending their last days cared for by strangers, in this alien environment, tethered to machines, chrome, and plastic.
Most of our patients do get better – we do have many success stories, for example, organ transplants. Rarely an easy course, but when all goes well, it is thrilling to meet the recipients, walking and talking, weeks later. Through the selflessness of a family who has just received the worst news of their lives, or the generosity of a family member or friend, the gift of lungs, kidney, pancreas, heart, or liver can save lives. No one who does this work can fail to be in awe when that happens.
Tonight, the hustle and bustle at change of shift is at a fever-pitch. There are some
sick
people. I catch fragments of conversations as I pass by the rooms.
“… forty-two-year-old female, idiopathic pulmonary hypertension … satting only 71 per cent on 100 per cent oxygen … awaiting lung transplant … top of the organ list.”
“… twenty-eight-year-old male, found at a bar … overdosed on Ecstacy … unconscious, tachycardic … no urine output … kidneys shut down – not even bladder sweat … dialysis to be started shortly … can’t locate family.”
“… Rapid Response Team bringing patient from the floor … eighty-two-year-old, unconscious, in respiratory failure … needs intubation … family is too distraught right now for a discussion, but we need to make some decisions about the plan of care …”
I adjust my ears to the ICU background music, a playlist of dings, dongs, chirps, buzzes, and beeps going off at random intervals from patient rooms. I never noticed it before but this place is noisy. Heavy doors bang open and close, rushed footsteps, loud voices– even peels of laughter and excited chatter at the nursing station. As for tonight’s vintage bouquet? I sniff the air and catch a whiff of a fresh upper gastro-intestinal bleed, the sweet-sour undertones of a brewing pseudomonas infection, and do I detect a frisson of melena – the distinctive smell of the end result of that GI blood passing through the “lower” end?
The housekeeping staff are cleaning rooms and restocking cupboards as they finish their shifts. Cindy, Comfort, and Eunice speak in a mélange of Chinese-, African-, and Jamaican-inflected English. They wave or call out
hey
as I make my way to the nursing station. There, David, a tall, elegant man, a patient care assistant, greets me in his courtly manner.
“Good evening, young lady.” He makes a deep bow. “I’m pleased to see you’ve decided to grace us with your presence on this lovely evening.”
The twenty-four ICU beds are full, I see, as I make my way around the spacious, rectangular-shaped unit to check the assignment board to find out the name of my patient. Most of our patients are so ill and unstable that they require one-to-one nursing care. In some cases, two nurses are needed to care for one patient.
For years, I’ve had a mystical belief that I always get the patient I need. (Whether my patients get the nurse they need is another story, and whether as a patient I’ll get the nurses I need remains to be seen.) For example, if my energy is flagging and I’m assigned a very sick patient, it’s a sign to dig down deep and rise to the occasion. A “quiet,” or stable, patient is a cue to make myself available to other nurses who need my assistance. I become the nurse I need to be. Tonight, with my own worries on my mind, all I’m hoping is to be a Good-Enough Nurse who can get my patient safely through the night. One bed full of suffering is all I can cope
“Do the math,” said a friend, another old-timer who’s worked here twenty-five-plus years like me. “We’ve witnessed the equivalent of the death of an entire town.”
True, but it’s not the numbers that stay with you, it’s the stories. For most of us, it’s not the death, but the way many people die, spending their last days cared for by strangers, in this alien environment, tethered to machines, chrome, and plastic.
Most of our patients do get better – we do have many success stories, for example, organ transplants. Rarely an easy course, but when all goes well, it is thrilling to meet the recipients, walking and talking, weeks later. Through the selflessness of a family who has just received the worst news of their lives, or the generosity of a family member or friend, the gift of lungs, kidney, pancreas, heart, or liver can save lives. No one who does this work can fail to be in awe when that happens.
Tonight, the hustle and bustle at change of shift is at a fever-pitch. There are some
sick
people. I catch fragments of conversations as I pass by the rooms.
“… forty-two-year-old female, idiopathic pulmonary hypertension … satting only 71 per cent on 100 per cent oxygen … awaiting lung transplant … top of the organ list.”
“… twenty-eight-year-old male, found at a bar … overdosed on Ecstacy … unconscious, tachycardic … no urine output … kidneys shut down – not even bladder sweat … dialysis to be started shortly … can’t locate family.”
“… Rapid Response Team bringing patient from the floor … eighty-two-year-old, unconscious, in respiratory failure … needs intubation … family is too distraught right now for a discussion, but we need to make some decisions about the plan of care …”
I adjust my ears to the ICU background music, a playlist of dings, dongs, chirps, buzzes, and beeps going off at random intervals from patient rooms. I never noticed it before but this place is noisy. Heavy doors bang open and close, rushed footsteps, loud voices– even peels of laughter and excited chatter at the nursing station. As for tonight’s vintage bouquet? I sniff the air and catch a whiff of a fresh upper gastro-intestinal bleed, the sweet-sour undertones of a brewing pseudomonas infection, and do I detect a frisson of melena – the distinctive smell of the end result of that GI blood passing through the “lower” end?
The housekeeping staff are cleaning rooms and restocking cupboards as they finish their shifts. Cindy, Comfort, and Eunice speak in a mélange of Chinese-, African-, and Jamaican-inflected English. They wave or call out
hey
as I make my way to the nursing station. There, David, a tall, elegant man, a patient care assistant, greets me in his courtly manner.
“Good evening, young lady.” He makes a deep bow. “I’m pleased to see you’ve decided to grace us with your presence on this lovely evening.”
The twenty-four ICU beds are full, I see, as I make my way around the spacious, rectangular-shaped unit to check the assignment board to find out the name of my patient. Most of our patients are so ill and unstable that they require one-to-one nursing care. In some cases, two nurses are needed to care for one patient.
For years, I’ve had a mystical belief that I always get the patient I need. (Whether my patients get the nurse they need is another story, and whether as a patient I’ll get the nurses I need remains to be seen.) For example, if my energy is flagging and I’m assigned a very sick patient, it’s a sign to dig down deep and rise to the occasion. A “quiet,” or stable, patient is a cue to make myself available to other nurses who need my assistance. I become the nurse I need to be. Tonight, with my own worries on my mind, all I’m hoping is to be a Good-Enough Nurse who can get my patient safely through the night. One bed full of suffering is all I can cope
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