It Isn't Always Fair in The Life Of A Nurse

When your work weekend starts with a woman in her 20s getting a fatal diagnosis and finding out she won't live to see next week, you have to think on your feet. All of the nurses huddled together and in less than two hours, we made her a veil out of gauze and a wedding dress out of a bed sheet and one lent her their thumb ring as a stand-in for the groom's ring and her mom lent her her wedding band to stand in for the bride's ring and we painted her nails and put on her makeup and then we cried right along side her father and her sister and her whole 30 person wedding party of impromptu gathered friends that flowed far outside her small ICU room as she and her fiance-turned-husband said their unexpectedly early vows. She had a real wedding dress and a real wedding ring and a real wedding date at a real church all scheduled for next May but she wasn't going to make it that long. So we gathered together and we quickly downloaded music on one of our iPhones and made the groom wait outside the room and then had him walk in to Canon in D and there wasn't a dry eye on the entire unit. The chaplain gave a beautiful wedding ceremony and despite being too weak to do much more than say a hushed "I do" from beneath her oxygen mask with closed eyes, they were suddenly man and wife. A kiss sealed it and with her sly smile, the only words said after "You may now kiss your bride" were "Can we try that again?" So kiss again they did. And there was a surprise reception in the break room complete with pizzas and fake bubbly champagne and a standard hospital issued "Well wishes!" cake and they were wed. It was sweet and simple and the groom looked as nervous as they all look but their whole family mobilized from a normal Saturday at their homes all over Wisconsin to a wedding in flip flops and hurried ponytails and with the background of beeping pumps, ringing phones and monitors dinging in our ICU. But it was, in its own little way, perfect.

The second part...not so much. When a routine tube placement went suddenly terribly wrong this afternoon, this new bride flipped into a heart rhythm that wasn't compatible with life. We jumped on her chest, alternating who was doing the compressions as we hung medication after medication, inserted a tube down her throat, pushed even more meds into her IVs and tried for nearly two straight hours to bring her back. Our best efforts, our strongest medications, our greatest team work, our sweat soaked scrubs and cramping arms...to no avail. With her new husband curled around her head, new still-shiny wedding ring catching the light, pleading in her ear "Just come back to me. Please. Please come back to me." and her mom holding one foot and her sister holding the other, she was pronounced dead. Her mother collapsed to her knees, letting out a primal scream that only comes when a mother loses a child. Her sister bellowed, yelping and sobbing and crying so hard she couldn't even breathe. Her brother's face crumbled, vulnerable and broken and aching in a visceral and inconsolable way. Her father simply clung to her mother, speechless and white and in shock. We tried to clear out of the room as quickly as we could, picking up the empty syringes and untangling cords and trying to cover her bloody, broken, bruised body as best we could so they could touch her and feel her before the heat faded from her skin. It was gut wrenching.

After an hour or so with the just the chaplain, the new husband and the family of five-now-four alone with her body, they pushed open the ICU door and came out with drooped shoulders and heavy sighs and puffy, swollen eyes. They were drained of any emotional or physical strength they ever had. But one by one, each family member went around and hugged every single nurse who did those compressions and pushed those meds and tried with all of our training to bring back their sweet girl. My heart ached as I hugged her mother, her father, his brother, her sister and finally her poor husband. His anniversary, at just 25 years old, will always be marked one day later by the date he became a widower.

My job isn't fair and the good ones don't always live and the bad ones don't always die. In the past three weeks alone we've seen five people under 40 years old die traumatically and unexpectedly in gruesome and disturbing ways. I sometimes come home and think I might end up with PTSD from this job. I've also found eating fro yo in my quiet, dark car in the parking lot of the fro yo shop soothes me immensely. It may not be the healthiest way to cope but so far it's the best thing I've found. With each day I work there though I'm reminded that this is where I need to be now. That my dreams of palliative care and end of life management are going to utilize the lessons I learn over the years I plan to spend at this job.

Right now, though, right now in these moments as I see these awful scenes and hug these broken parents and stand knee deep in the worst days of these peoples lives...I feel it and it sinks deep into my bones and it becomes a part of me. Sometimes there is nothing you can do for the mother who has thrown her body across her newly dead daughter, wailing and in utter hysterics, other than to rub her back and make sure she doesn't fall and let her completely lose it. Sometimes that's my role and while no one trains you for that and nursing school never touches on the rawest parts of what we see, I'm coming to see we all have an instinct in times like that that we fall back on and listen to. Hold a hand, offer a tissue, give a really good long hug and often, say nothing at all. Sometimes there isn't an easy answer or an easy thing to say. And in the end, that's okay.