In the nursing field, we are the ones to see the birth and the death of people. Most of us only know the latter unless we work in labor and delivery or the NICU. Working on Medical-Surgical and Medical-Telemetry units, we would not know what to do if a woman went into labor. In the past two years, I worked on a Covid floor. No matter your opinions on the subject, I have seen more death, had to do more post-mortem care on patients and participated in more codes in the last two years than any other time.
Death is inevitable. The end-of-life with a patient will always be a sad occasion, and as we are caregivers, it’s normal to feel something. But there is, in my opinion, a significant difference between a patient who is on comfort care or hospice and a young person who died unexpectantly. Comfort Care is when a patient’s prognosis is terminal, they might have been hospitalized several times and gone through treatments without success. Comfort Care includes pain medication, antianxiety, and antinausea. For patients that opt-in or family members’ decisions, treatment towards the disease process stops; instead, medical attention directs at keeping the patient, as the name suggests, comfortable. I have seen families that support the patient on oxygen, tube feeding per their request, but typically that isn’t done because it’s looked at as life-prolonging. When a patient passes expectantly with family in the room, it’s sad but peaceful with a sense of closure.
On the other hand, when a patient in their 40s admitted to the hospital with a disease, the patient and their family expect their family member to come home. It’s heartbreaking to watch a patient begging to live as they cannot breathe, which ends in the person’s expiration and the family phone call. I hate making a call in the middle of the night to tell them that their family member at the moment was in a code, not breathing and pulseless, with CPR being performed or they had already passed. The family members panicked, cried, or heaved.
As caregivers, we feel for the patient and the family, making for a great nurse. The first time a patient dies, you will cry or leave the shift with a heavy heart. After the first few deaths, each one you feel, but you also become numb. You don’t stop the emotion for the patient or the family. It’s hard to explain that it gets easier reasonably to a new nurse.
The last two years have been hell on my mental health. During 2020 and 2021, I have come home physically, emotionally, and mentally exhausted. My coworkers and I wouldn’t talk about who went home or discharged but who died.
How have you dealt with the constant death in the past?