Anyone living in the philly know...this has been a dark and dismal time for the men and women serving to protect and serve the public..For many have fallen in a short period of time....We try to make sense of this...but, it's really hard when you see the children left behind..the young pregnant wife with their first child, now burying her 24 y/o husband tomorrow.
A couple weeks ago, another fell..tragically...I had a vivid vision of what had befallen from the nurses perspective as we see this tragedy...our hands in it:
Rushed to the ER, they worked over an hour on him...I know the mayhem...the fight..the tornado of voices shouting from nurses, docs, and techs..You're on a speeding train and you just go..You keep going, but the monitors and numbers say otherwise..as you see this young uniformed man on the stretcher..You keep pushing the meds, throwing in lines, suctioning the blood, intubate him, bolus fluid, do compressions, shock when and if any electrical activity allows..The monitors...him...The cycle keeps going with every turn and change..we react to fix it...Voices and packages from life sustaining equpiment flying...But, the blood pressure won't stay up...the heart rate won't sustain, the breathing tube and ambu bag are ventilating him....That heart won't catch a rhythm! It's been going on for over an hour.....
Nurses, docs, techs...the glances to each other begin..a couple shake their head as others continue efforts..Some tears well..but, can't go there yet..It becomes evident in the eyes of all if us in the room..."This is it, let go.." Standing there, all stop as they were...Eyes now on the attending physician.."Call it," he says. A time is given to the end of one man's story...Hands and hearts drop...sighs..we look to...him...QUIET...so quiet...
The family...Oh, the family is waiting..The nurses start to remove the life saving debris as the cry outside that door pierces straight to the core of us. Tears are back...but not yet.. We internally brace ourselves as the family enters the room...the cry ever worse as the family sees this body that once carried their loved one's soul..We slowly leave and close the door behind, allowing the family to say goodbye...Bless their hearts..
Family leaves, the docs leave, but the nurses...we stay. We take away all the peices that don't belong anymore on this body to be the way he was when he came here...the IV, the breathing tube, ekg leads, lines, tape..We clean this man's body...Praying for the peace of his soul...The peace of all..
Peace to you..Peace to the love that remains here
Goodnight Brave Servant
Goodnight Honorable Loving Soul