Posted by:
Dave the Atheist
(
)
Date: October 11, 2020 02:24PM
I didn't write this. A nurse wrote this. I'm just passing it along.
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Portland True Blue writes ...
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"I am an RN, BSN, CCRN with over 10 years clinical experience in CCU/ICU. I care for the critically ill and those seriously injured, I am familiar with death and dying. Since the pandemic started, I have worked in a COVID CCU. Dying there is very different from the hospital deaths I have experienced in the past. There are no family, friends, or loved ones there to support the patient or each other during the patient’s final journey. There is no religious leader to lead prayers or recite scripture. Just an RN in their PAPR, kitted out in full PPE. Sometimes that nurse is me. I hold my patient’s hand in mine and a phone with the other so their families can say goodbye. I turn the sound off the sound on the monitors so there is silence. As death draws nearer, I can feel the body heat leave their hands as their fingers turn blue. When that last spark of life leaves and the lines on the monitor go flat, it is profound. I note the time of death and begin packaging my patient for transport to the morgue. Nurses need to remain professional but in the privacy of my patient’s AIIR, I do sometimes cry and pray, the 23rd psalm. I am a CCU/ICU nurse, I care for the sick and sometimes the dying, it’s what I do and who I am."