Date: March 2, 2022
Warning: There are graphic descriptions of a dead body. This is how I remember the event.
This was my first day on 9SW. I met up with a junior health scholar (JHS) who showed me around. Susan, the charge nurse, asked us to discharge a patient. His name was [John Doe] and he was ninety years old. We grabbed a wheelchair from the storage room and wheeled it into his room. The JHS forgot to knock so I made note of that. Susan spent a long time explaining to John Doe what his discharge forms were (she even rolled her eyes at us because he was taking so long). Then, he got into the wheelchair and we took him down to the lobby. I tried to make conversation with him, commenting on his Mariner's cap and asking him if he likes baseball. When we got down to the lobby, we met up with his son who pulled his car around to the front.
While we waited for the son, a guy in his 60s-70s walks in. He was hunched over with an abnormally large chest. He was not wearing a mask. John Doe commented on that, and was sort of upset. Finally, a lobby person asked the man to put on a mask. He seemed to be looking for a certain floor. A few things that popped up in my head were: Why was I almost afraid of him? He seemed like he could be a threat, but why did I feel that way? Was it because he was not wearing a mask and had entered a hospital? Was it his hunched over demeanor and mean expression?
The son came and we rolled John Doe to curb, where his son helped him into the car. It was actually a truck that was really far off the ground, but John Doe was able to climb in. One thing I observed was that the son did not look like he was extremely happy to see his dad. Granted I do not know how long John Doe had been gone and how often the son came to visit him, but there were no hugs exchanged, not even a large smile. I wonder why that is.
Then we went back up to 9SW, and met up with the Health Scholar, Divya. She showed me around again, and we replaced some soiled linen bags and rolled newly stocked carts into the patient rooms. They both showed me the call lights as well. At some point, Susan came up to us and was like, do you guys want a once in a lifetime opportunity? A patient passed away this morning and we are going to prepare her for the morgue. Would you like to see?
Her name was [Jane Doe] and she was a 69-year-old lady. She had many health issues - she once had COVID, had a kidney stone, etc. We went in gowned and gloved and there she was,lying as still as a stick. Her hair was very thinned out, her eyes were half open, and her mouth was open with her tongue sticking out. At first, I thought she just had big lips but I realized that it was her tongue. She had a gown on her but once we were all in the room, Susan, and the other nurses took the gown off of her. She was lying there naked in front of all seven of us. It was weird to me because it really shows that life moves on after you die. She had no control over whether these four health scholars would get to see her naked. Once you die, you don't have a choice.
She had a trach tube in her neck, surrounded by white gauze. She also had a tube coming out of her chest underneath her left shoulder. She had a tube coming out of her stomach, left of the belly button, and she had a tube in her back. One of the tubes connected to a bloody bag. I am guessing that was the one connected to her ureter.
As one of the nurses removed all the tubes, he described what he was doing and what each tube was for. The one in the stomach to help her eat. The one in her chest was a dialysis catheter; it filtered her blood because her kidneys could not do it for her. That one was difficult to get out. It was a couple inches long, so when the nurse tugged on it, you could see part of her neck move, even though the tube was clearly in her chest. The trach was removed; it helped her breathe when she had COVID.
Lastly, Susan and a nurse rolled Jane Doe over to remove the tube from the back, which was helping Jane Doe because she had a kidney stone blocking blood. Jane Doe's backside was even worse than her front. She had bed sores, that were open. I cannot imagine how painful that must have been. She had feces around her anus and around the bed sores. It looked like she either hadn't been wiped last time she used the bathroom, or she just pooped it all out when she died (which would make sense because the muscles stop contracting after you die). As she was rolled over, blood poured out of the hole where the chest tube came out. According to the nurses, bleeding was not supposed to happen since the blood was not pumping anymore but it did, leaving a large stain of blood on the sheets.
I have tried to reflect. I was surprised that I did not have a stronger emotional reaction. I almost did not even feel sadness. I knew that this was a sad event but when I looked at Jane Doe, I looked at her less of a person with experiences and family, but more of a way to enrich my clinical experience. I thought it was so cool to see a dead person. It was scary to me how little I was affected by seeing a dead person. It was almost like I could just see her as a dead body, rather than a person. When I was vocalizing that to other people, I wondered why this was. Was it because I was desensitized after seeing so many people die in movies and tv shows? Was it just because I did not know who she was? I am still trying to process my thoughts and I am waiting for it to hit me - the fact that I touched and saw a dead person. But it has been four days and I still have not broken down in tears. I guess I am good at compartmentalization - because I am able to separate who she was as a person from my ability to learn more about science.
Addendum: It's been three months since this happened. I think that my lack of a stronger reaction was a result of a combination of all my hypotheses. I did not know Jane Doe; I have seen a fair share of death both in real life and on the big screens; and I was treating her death purely as a way to learn. Also, I understand that death is a natural part of life. If one were to carry the emotional burden of death, they would break because it happens so often. I think I recognized that it was Jane Doe's time, which made it easier for me to separate myself from the sadness that often accompanies death. Since this happened, I have seen more patients pass away, including ones I had a closer relationship with; understanding that they are now relieved of their suffering has made it easier to come to terms with their death.
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