I have been pretty inactive on here recently, and that's for two reasons: I started my second semester of nursing school, and I lived through Hurricane Isaac.
My husband and I didn't have power for a week, and we lost all the contents of our refrigerator and freezer (hence the no-cooking posts). My birthday always occurs during one of these hurricane episodes too, which means that I have the day off to do very little with it because everything is still closed from the hurricane. It's pretty depressing.
My husband and I are pretty busy folks - I go to nursing school full time and work whenever possible, and my husband works full time and goes to school four nights a week. My school load has been really arduous lately because now we have to make up the time we missed from the hurrication, so we're both in hyper mode and it has been a pretty miserable, high-stress time for us and I know that it's been hard for me to stay encouraged to keep working.
Given all that, I figured that I would share something that I haven't really shared with anyone.
As some of you reading may know about me, when I started nursing school I was working in an assisted living facility. I wanted to transition into a health care field to help supplement what I was learning in school, and I tend to get bored and frustrated when I don't work. I also recognized that one of my challenges as a future health care provider was my struggle to process feelings of death and felt like working there would give me the opportunity to confront those feelings head on.
I learned untold things from working there - everything from medical abbreviations to drugs to diets to wound care. And yes, I definitely learned about death.
Mrs. B was a resident there who reminded me of one of my best friends growing up, and how I would imagine she would be as an older lady. She tried to stay as independent as possible and as silly as it sounds, most of what I would do for her is "spot" her and make sure she stayed safe and didn't hurt herself. One night I helped her into bed and she asked me to give her a good night kiss. At that point I knew that this wasn't just a job for me.
A few months later, Mrs. B had gone through some changes. She was weak and couldn't get around like she used to. She was sleeping a lot more than usual. She was heavier and couldn't help me to move her into chairs or her bed. She stopped leaving her room, asking for meal trays to be brought up to her. Before long, the trays went untouched and she didn't even want the dark chocolate Hershey kisses that I used to have to wipe away from around her mouth when she fell asleep. She started telling others that she was ready to die.
She refused her medications and liquids, and just stayed in bed. Soon enough, she rested back and lapsed into labored, open-mouthed breathing. We moved her nasal cannula into her mouth so she could get some more oxygen, and we swabbed her mouth out with sponges and cool water.
I left work on a Saturday night knowing she wouldn't be there when I came back the next day. It upset me to think that soon, someone else would be sitting in her place at the table, someone else would be living in her room. I cried my eyes out and knew if I stayed at home that night I would just feel worse, and I needed to get my mind away from it. I went out with my sister and talked through it but the sadness was still in my heart.
Sure enough, she was gone the next day. A sadness loomed over work for the next few days. I remember seeing Mrs. B's daughter cleaning out her mom's things and not being able to keep it together when offering my condolences. I knew that I couldn't keep doing this for the rest of my life and asked myself how I could best cope with the loss of people I had cared for without hardening myself to death.
I wanted to remember Mrs. B forever because she was the first person I had taken care of that died. But I knew there would be many others, and that I would learn something from all of them. So I got a small, pretty notebook and opened it up and wrote down Mrs. B's name.
Her name was soon joined by Mrs. L. After that, Mrs. D, Mr. V, and many more. After each one died, I would write him or her down and think about what he or she meant to me. I would then flip through the book to remember them all and why they were special.
As time went on, I learned that dying is kind of special. It doesn't feel good for the survivors, but a lot of the people who died were ready to go - and all I really did was make them as pleasant and comfortable as possible while they were on their way. There are very few professions that can truly give you an opportunity to help others achieve inner peace.
After I left the nursing home, I kept up with who passed away through friends and obituaries. After the hurricane there have been more deaths than usual, and I've been visiting my book more frequently. But I've started to perceive my book a little differently. I started the book to help me cope with my feelings of sadness and loss. But now every one of the people in the book has helped me to become better at taking care of people, and I owe them my best effort at becoming a nurse because they let me take care of them first. In a sense, my sad little book has become my other-worldly cheering section.
I won't pretend that I never get upset or depressed when I hear that someone else I took care of passed away. But having my book helped me to respect their lives, remember how they helped me, and know that I am better at what I do because I was fortunate to have them in my life.
