she stopped breathing

Just last night I was standing at the nurses station a few minuets after my shift had started not really sure what I was supposed to do because I was the assigned "super user" (neither here nor there for you non SJHW nurses!!!), drinking my first of many cups of coffee when a man walks up to me and says, "She stopped breathing."

In the hospital that sentence can mean several different things.

1. Start CPR and call a code blue.
2. Go assess the patient, call the intensive care doctor for immediate intervention.
   
3. An expected death, need to pronounce the patient dead.

As I said, I was the nurse who hadn't really received an assignment, so I didn't really know anything about our 30+ patients last night! Another nurse over heard and jumped up knowing that this was situation number 3, an expected death, where 2 nurses are called to the room to pronounce the patient dead and offer support to the family.

Here goes. I put down my coffee cup. Track down a stethoscope (have I mentioned that I am not acting as a patient care nurse on this shift???) Put on my stoic face and go to face the family. Only problem is, the grandson who came and spoke to me in the first place is standing right beside me the entire time!

"TIME TO PULL IT TOGETHER." Yes, I'm talking to myself as I walk down the hall! This is part of the job. I am trying to convince myself that it was simply the shock of the situation that has me all rattles but rattled I am.

I enter the room with the other nurse, the grandson, stethoscopes at the ready. There is another grieving loved one at the bedside.

I pause.

I do my job.

The patient is dead.

I leave.

The family continues to gather in the patient's room as is common and I have intermittent interaction with them. Because of my still up in the air assignment I take on alot of the communication that we nurses must do when we have a death but I am never again in the patients room.

I spoke with the woman who had been in the room when she had passed away to offer my condolences and she thanked me. The two of us got to talking and she was sharing some of the family dynamics and I felt that I could share my role in the situation. She felt that somehow I had not only "pulled it together" but had been both professional and supportive just when she needed it the most.

This had to have been the hand of God.