(Story Submission!)

It had been my first shift back in a near three month sabbatical from the hospital. Work was few and far between in those days, mainly because my seniority was so low. This also meant I got the short end of the stick when it came to shifts, wards and patient care.

One of our duties as Nursing Assistant is Constant Care, where we sit (or stand, or run or walk) with a patient and watch everything they do, help them with everything and basically provide direct one on one care.

I’d been called to do a Constant Care on one of the more ruthless medical wards on the fifth floor. I told the Nursing Supervisor I’d be a bit late, mainly because it was a late request for a constant care.

Arriving late on shift (By only half hour, evenings start at 15:30) I get my assignment and head down to the room where my constant care is for the evening. The previous N.A. doesn’t give me report on this person, and neither does the Charge Nurse. Even so, I go in and introduce myself to the patient. He’s a very plesant old man, most likely somewhere in his late 60’s early 70’s. Quite young as far as health standards go. He’s alert and oriented to time and place. He’s able to remember my name and he’s able to make coherent decisions on his own. When I got on shift, he was sitting in a Geri-Chair.

At about 5:30 he asks if he can go back to bed because he’s feeling a little tired. I counter with “Well, supper will be up soon and I’m sure you’d much rather sit up in a chair for supper than be in your bed?” He agrees with me on this and instead decides to stay up in the Geri-Chair for supper. I asked him about his accent (As he was slightly hard to understand without his dentures, it made it doubly difficult when English wasn’t his first language) and he tells me that he’s from Austria and that he immigrated to Canada during the 1950’s. Seems fair enough, I smile and nod, ask him a few more questions about Austria; What it was like, where were nice places to go, where’s the grabdest city, that sort of thing. So over the course of dinner, he tells me about Austria, how he met his wife and how they moved to Canada. All in all, a wonderful story really.

At about 6:30, again he asks if he can go back to bed, claiming he feels tired. Me being the sympathetic soul that I was, asked the other aide in the room (There was another constant care in the same room as I) to help me get this gentleman back to bed. He’s at least a two person assist and is very wobbly on his feet. After a great kerfuffle and production, we finally get him back in his bed and tucked in for the night. I still haven’t gone for break yet, mainly because the floor was so busy with a heavy patient load that evening.

So my gentleman closes his eyes for a bit and starts sleeping peacefully. Half an hour later (At 7:00) he wakes and starts causing such a fuss and kicking up a storm, complaining that he can’t breathe. Now, only being an Aide, I call for his Nurse. Breathing difficulty is not something I mess with, period. So I get him dangling at the edge of the bed, his feet almost touching the floor and I start to rub his back a bit, telling him to breathe in through his nose and out through his mouth and to relax a bit. The biggest thing about patients who cannot breathe is that they begin to panic. He does listen to me though, as I can hear him inhale shakey breath through his nose and exhale through pursed lips. He quietly asked me if he could lean against my hip, as he was “So tired”, so I nodded and said he could and kept rubbing his back for him.

I’d hardly noticed anything was wrong until the aide in the bed next to me said: “Uhm…you patient is blue” and the Nurse at that moment walked in and called a Code Blue. This poor man that I didn’t know anything about had literally died in my arms. They of course tried to save him, tossing me out of the way when the Crash team got there, but eventually they had to call it.

I still to this day am astounded on how quickly he went and how quietly he went. I see daily how many people die without their family members there to hold them, or have anyone there to hold them. Many of our elderly patients have no one left to call family or friends. But I was there for this gentleman, and he was listening to me even as his soul left his body. It provides me with a greater sense of acceptance knowing that he wasn’t alone when he passed, That I was there providing him with some form of comfort, and that I was there to provide him with the emotional care that he needed. I rubbed his back, I held his hand, I told him that I was there and that everything was going to be alright.

I’ll always remember him…and oddly, I can’t even remember his name. I honestly couldn’t understand why there had been a Constant Care asked for him.
I found out later that the two nights before, he’d been rather unruly to deal with. Climbing over the side rails, being verbally abusive with the staff and generally being rather difficult to deal with.

I’m glad I got to see him when I did, I think it was better for him that way. I don’t think he was confused about what was going on, I think he understood that he was going to die. It’s strange how pateints have that moment of clarity and coherence right before they pass.

I just hope that when it’s my time to go, that I have someone there for me and that I also have the clarity of mind to be at peace with what is going on.

Thanks to Kaylin!