ORIGINAL WORK ONLY, NO PLAGERSIM

INSTRUCTIONS

· For this assignment I want you to do some introspection and think about how you felt, coped, interacted with a patient who was dying or had recently died. 
(clean up what I wrote below)

· Channel these thoughts into a creative outlet. 

· Pretend your audience is the next generation of nursing students coming up behind you.   How can you creatively reflect what it is like to care for a patient who is lost or a family who is the midst of losing someone?  

My first time in the ICU my nurse I was shadowing ended up having a patient who passed away within the first hour and half of me being up there. The women was in her late 80’s and I was in the patients room helping my nurse hold the patient on her side while she cleaned her in the bed. The women was deaf as well as blind. While my nurse cleaned her I noticed that the patient was throwing up through her nose a brown thick substance. I informed the nurse immediately however she let me know that was impossible because she had gastric tube. I told her again because I panicked, and it did not look normal (and because I have never seen this before in clinic). To ease my anxiety which she could see on my face and the tone in my voice we laid the patient back on her back and she said I was right. After we cleaned her up she began to code. The doctors rushed in however nothing could be done she passed away that night at 8pm that night. The resident kept trying to countionusly call the family as well as staff but no answer. My nurse and I removed all her IVs and tubing so that she can be taken down to the morgue and await family decisions on what to do with her body. I felt horrible. She passed away alone with no family at her bedside and this hurt me tremendously. As the nurse and I bagged up her body and belongings in the room the nurse asked if I wanted to assist the other male nurse in taking her down the morgue. I did go to the morgue however while in the elevator I began crying and the nurse told me that was refreshing. I apologized but the nurse said, “Don’t apologize for crying! Most of us nurses on the ICU deal with death daily and now we have become accustomed so its refreshing to see you cry it puts things back into perspective!”