shit,death,blood

Today was rather...erm...eventful, yes.

For some reason us final students were not allocated our 4 patient to practice for our exam but were used as an extra pair of hands. When I tried to protest I was quickly shut up. I thought oh well, I wasn't even going to turn up at work today anyway and I might aswell get to know other patients on the ward rather than the usual 4-8 I take care of usually.

Therefore I took on Johnny, the patient in bed 24. He was a fully dependent patient, with a tube up his nose, in his vein and up his you-know-where. He had a stroke and he was totally paralysed and couldn't talk at all. And he was covered with blankets up to his nose. And my friend and I had to bathe this dude.

So I grabbed the top most blanket, the heaviest one and yanked it off the bed. What I did not know was that this man had pressure ulcers on his elbows and that the bandages were stuck to the blankets, therefore they were savagely yanked off aswell and there was blood everywhere. And I mean everywhere...all over my apron, my gloves, his mattress...

Oh my God, Oh my God, Lord help me, Oh Jesus. I ran to the treatment room to get saline, bandages and a sterile pack of swabs and proceeded to clean the carnage. That was crisis number one.

Crisis 2 and 3 were far worse. There was the most God awful smell radiating from his nappy. I put on gloves and decided to be a hero and open it up. Holy shit. Literally. It was the most severe case of melena I have ever seen in my life. For those not in the know, melena is copious amounts of bloody, liquidy faeces with a very offensive odour. It was like a large jar of Nutella exploded in his nappy. And, it was caked around his catheter. When I cleaned the catheter, there was blood all over the tubing which meant that he inevitably had a urinary tract infection or UTI...ie: his pee-hole was diseased.

Crisis 4: When we turned this patient over, he had a bedsore all over the tail of his spinal cord, exactly where the ass crack starts. When we pulled off the nappy in its entirity, the Hydrocolloid protecting the sore disintegrated and therefore the sore was also caked in shit and blood and decomposing skin. Whoever thought the human body could be so foul? So first I clean the shit (which was no easy task) and then I set to work on the bedsore. When it was all over, I threw the heavy and smelly nappy away and set to work dressing and positioning my patient.

That is when crisis number 5 took place. The doctor stuck his head in the door and I told him that the patient has severe melena and a possible UTI.

Doctor: can I see the nappy?
Me: Why?
Doctor: so I can see the melena.
Me: I threw it away...
Doctor: Yes...can you fetch it?
Me: What?! From the garbage filled with a whole mornings worth of shitty nappies and bandages? Thats round about 20 nappies!
Doctor: Yes...can you fetch it?
Me: You have got to be kidding.
Doctor: No I'm not, its really important.

So I dig into the garbage and after opening 4 incorrect nappies (yet all equally foul) I find the one formerly worn by my patient. I open it for the doctor.

Doctor: Yes....its melena. You can chuck it now.

I told him its fucking melena! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH! sigh.

As if that wasn't enough, a relative came up to me and said "I don't know if I'm meant to tell you, but it looks like my mother isn't breathing." I went close to her and felt her carotid pulse and I felt the strangest feeling in my life...my heart skipped a beat because her pulse wasn't there. My colleague told me later that the expression on my face was comically surprised. "Did she leave us?" I replied "I'm afraid I think so." and I ran to call a qualified nurse and got the priest on the phone. I have experienced dying patients before, but this is the first time I actually felt the waxy feeling of skin, the cool numbness. I closed the patient's mouth and drew the curtains and called the doctor to declare her as dead.

I went home later with a migraine which i slept off. I woke up at around dinner time and helped make dinner with my dad for my mum and siblings. And I realised when I sat with my family and got off the phone with my boyfriend, what happens at hospital doesn't have to be brought home. It should be guiltlessly forgotten. Although somebody else's life is ending or had ended, mine goes on. Life goes on.