Comments on: Extracting Meat

By: Peter

Peter — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 16:30:31 +0000

Hello!

I’ve studied medicine sence I was two or three.

So tell me.

Did she live after that?

You said she coded but how did it go after that?

By: Terry

Terry — Sat, 20 May 2006 15:08:45 +0000

You have a great gift for writing in a descriptive, compelling manner. I felt as if I were in the room with you.

It is disturbing that we have made such strides medically that we don’t know when enough is enough. There is something to be said about death with dignity.

By: NPs Save Lives

NPs Save Lives — Sun, 26 Feb 2006 17:10:14 +0000

It’s amazing that we insist that elderly eat when they can no longer swallow properly..Families will continue to pracitcally push it down and then get upset when the aspiration pneumonia sets in..
I’m really glad that you were able to help that patient. Makes it worth while doesn’t it??

By: kimberly

kimberly — Tue, 21 Feb 2006 19:59:50 +0000

All I can say is:
1. Wow.
2. Isn’t suctioning great!
3. Good thing you didn’t bag her and push it in further..

By: Keith Carlson

Keith Carlson — Sun, 12 Feb 2006 10:11:04 +0000

What an amazing story! Your comments about the elderly and the end of life are poignant. It really must be up to the team to educate the patient and family and decide just how far to go to continue life. We are so quick as a society to euthanize a pet who is suffering……It’s a major conundrum to which I have no answer.

By: beajerry

beajerry — Tue, 07 Feb 2006 11:50:35 +0000

Mmmmmmm, meat fibers….

By: WildButterfly

WildButterfly — Wed, 01 Feb 2006 22:25:51 +0000

Being a BSN of 10 years and having all my experience in LTC and Hospice I find your story touching and heartbreaking. I can see and have lived those struggles. I have many residents on my unit whose family just can’t let go of thier loved ones. And I have also heard people talk about “slow codes”.

The main thing all of us as nurses can do is to be the ADVOCATES we all learned to be for our geriatric patients (and ALL patients) and EDUCATE!!!

Educate the families, the patients, & our clients to be prepared for death with their living wills. Don’t be afraid to discuss death up front with everyone. Death, like birth, is a stage in all of our lives. The cricle of live.

We can be heroic nurses by helping people die peacefully as well as by helping them live.

AND….The comment about Nursing homes not doing good oral care…yes it may be true in some instances. BUT I am 100% sure that some hospital nurses are lacking in this area as well. Let’s not belittle eachother’s choice of profession or setting.
Until you walk in my shoes……

A nurse in a nursing home is just as much of an angel as a nurse in the ICU or ER.

By: DonnaGoldy

DonnaGoldy — Tue, 31 Jan 2006 15:51:42 +0000

Your story does not surprise me. Being critical care for 25 years. Meat fibers, left over food allot of elderly who are sick can not get there food down right and end up with pneumonia, choking and getting food stuff stuck.

By: Marlou D. Davis, MD

Marlou D. Davis, MD — Sat, 28 Jan 2006 16:56:24 +0000

Nurses are angels of mercy. They are not God. They simply do God’s work.

It is like being a Catholic, much of what you do is based on Faith not understanding. We are unable to understand though we would very much like to it is not within our province.
I practiced medicine and surgery for 30 years and I was always amazed that as scientific and advanced as I thought I was that I could never really predict with 100% accuracy when someone was going to die or the actual outcome of treatment. I learned that most of the time it was really in someone else’s hands, not mine.

Marlou Davis, MD

By: donorcycle

donorcycle — Sat, 28 Jan 2006 12:58:00 +0000

I agree, sometimes I wonder why we hate old people so much, since we torture them so. But, you could also look at it like you gave her and her family a few mores days together before she dies. My uncle was a raging alcoholic. When he was in his 80′s he got sick, coded a few time, became septic, had MRSA, the whole tamale. My aunt wouldn’t make him a DNR. I thought she was nuts. But he got better enough to go home. That last year before he died he didn’t drink and was like a new person. They got to spend that year together and end on a good note. Who knows why these things happen?