The Patient That Enters Your Heart | Love Your Nursing Life | Bobbi McCarthy

Photo: Josh Welliver

I met her as she ran into room 1 carrying his little grey body…the triage nurse was just ahead of her with scared eyes. The mom, carrying the little grey body, was not crying. I wanted to. I took the little grey body from her, he was heavy and stiff, and laid him on the bed. The triage nurse ran to get more help. I grabbed the Pedi bag mask and began rescue breathing—actually there was nothing to rescue but I couldn’t not do it. There was no pulse and no activity but asystole on the monitor…he was gone.

“Please don’t do that…it’s his time to go and I don’t want him to come back. He has had a bad life, and we have a Do Not Resuscitate order.”

The nurse in me began screaming, “I’m supposed to save him…do CPR…intubate him…not give up!”

My mind heard her but my heart couldn’t take it in. I continued until the doc came in. The boy still had no pulse and he was mottled and grey. His eyes were open.

“What happened?” the doc asked.

“I just found him this way when I went to check on him.” She answered. No tears.

As the doctor and mother talked about the boy’s chromosome disorder and his pain I unwrapped the blue car blanket that held his little body. He was naked. This bothered me greatly.

“Why is he naked?” I asked her.

“He hated clothes.” She answered. My heart hurt.

Time of death 8:04am.

I asked her if I could clean him up (his body released fluids). She said yes. She sat down on the bed next to him but didn’t touch him. Another woman came in who was crying. The mother got up and went to her. They hugged. She asked me to give them a few minutes with him. I covered him up with a warm blanket and left the room. I know the warm blanket was useless but it made me feel better. I went into the bathroom and cried.

The mother told me what funeral home to call and then she and the other woman left. She left him with me. I went back into room 1 and I unwrapped his little body from the blankets and I gently washed him up. I cried. I wanted to close his eyes. I prayed for him. I put him in a little hospital gown and put his cold, grey and blue body into the body bag, and I again cried as I zipped him in.

I went to the nurse’s station, filled with chaos as usual, and I called the funeral home. Security came and took his body. I felt numb, sad, pissed off and confused. I tried so hard not to judge the mother but I did. My heart hurt over this boy—over the detached last moments she had with him…I did not walk in her shoes and so I know that I have no business judging…

I closed my heart, took a deep breath and went into room 3 to start my patient’s IV and draw her blood. I smiled and introduced myself…

• http://www.facebook.com/mpstacy Mark P Stacy

  I am a hospice nurse.

  The mother’s reaction to death made sense to me. She didn’t have to cry, scream, or show emotion. She’s been grieving, probably crying or “reacting” from the moment someone said to her, “your baby’s not ….” She knew this was coming.

  She’s been waiting. Listening to each breath, Attentive to the point beyond exhaustion. It wouldn’t surprise me that she was feeling relief and peace. And pain. She was under no obligation to show that pain and was probably too tired to do so.

  As nurses, we are trained to preserve life. To keep fighting. But as we do eventually learn, there are times when we have to accept that death is also inevitable and it never allows us to control it. Babies seem to die too soon. It’s so unexpected that it shocks us every time.

  But they die. Our role then becomes facilitators of peace and bringers of comfort. Accepting that DNR means what it says. Providing medication without fear. Staying our hands when our hearts scream for action. Providing dignity and support. Saving judgement for an appropriate time. Remembering that we are all so different and all so much the same. Loving the unloved.

  The shift in roles for nurses occurs so quickly and demands so much that it’s a miracle that any of us can do it. Bobbi has reminded us of this. Thank you.

• Frenchgal

  People often forget that not just blood relatives or close friends are the only ones who can grieve a death. I’ve lost 2 husbands in my life. My first husband died of prostate cancer at the age of 27, only 9 months, to the day, after we had our first child. He suffered greatly and I watched him die, daily. I had let go long before that because I still had a child to raise and I was dying right along with him. My second husband died, totally unexpectedly and while I was holding his hand. I still have to deal with his passing because I am an RN and at times wonder why I couldn’t have done more to revive him. We are only human.

• JMC4231

  Not knowing this patients’ history, ~ The Mother did ~ and with the DNR order in place, the Nurse has no choice but to respect that.  May be hard for the Nurse, though. 

• Bellamlw

  This is but one of a lifetime nursing interventions that speak to my heart !

• Anonymous

  A very similar thing happened to me on my very first day working as an RN in the ER. Very sad but, like it’s been said, it’s not our place to pass judgment on the mother or anyone in any other situation.

• Erlinda

  As nurses we are sometimes judging pacient,s family by the way they act at grieving time, but at the same time we all are aware of the differents fases of the grieving process. by conclusion nurses are humain beings too

• Deb

  The last 12 years I worked in nursing was on pediatrics. There is nothing worse than losing a child. Several of the children that died under my care had chronic or genetic problems. One mom just couldn’t let her child go, so we had to do everything we could to save her. Another mother had finally decided to let him go. She was a great mom. She just felt like he had faught his last battle. Parents react differently as do nurses. I’ve cried with each parent. Some of these people we had know for years. They made the choice they felt was best for their child.