The Pain of Loss

I will post some good news in my next post, but want to talk about something that has me feeling very sad today.

A little over a year ago, the 21 year-old daughter of one of my nurse coworkers was diagnosed with Lymphoma (the specialty of the unit I work on). She has a 4 year-old son who the cutest, smartest little boy you'll ever meet. We've all been taking care of this girl (and her mom) off and on for the past year. Last week she was admitted to our unit more sick than ever before. I took care of her each day and held her mom's hand while we made plans for how to handle her end of life care. I have cried all day at work for 3 days straight. My other patients were worried about me while I fell apart caring for this family. This is the daughter of my friend and we have all grown so attached for the past year.

Friday was so hard. The patient was so weak but insisted on getting up to the commode when she needed to use the bathroom. During one of the times she was up, her mom asked her if she really understood what was happening. She stated very simply, "Yes, I'm going to die." Her mom hugged her from behind and while crying told her how much she loved her and would miss her. The patient responded, "I love you too, Mom." I cried so much I was having a hard time getting her cleaned up and back to bed. I won't put the details of her little boy laying in bed with her, but you can imagine. Listening to his grandmother explain to him that she will go live with Jesus, just like his dog Shadow did, hurts in ways I can't explain.

She was to go home with hospice care yesterday but died on our unit before she could be moved. I had dropped the boys of at 5:30 to ride the bus to the school science contest and was getting ready to head to the hospital to say my goodbye when her nurse called me. I have never been so attached to one of my patients and family and have never cried so much over the death of someone I've cared for as a nurse.

I think I feel that as nurses we often feel immune to the illnesses suffered by our patients because we are the caregivers. This has burst my "immunity" bubble and scares me that if this could happen to my friend, a nurse herself, that it could happen to me or my boys as well.

This only reinforces my belief that we should spend every possible moment with our kids because you never know how long we have together. So to those people who make fun of me for going on every field trip, sitting with my kids and their friends at the movies and working a job that gets me up at 4:00 a.m. so that I can be home when my boys get home from school - I give you something to think about.

My next post will be upbeat ...

Christmas & Comcast

The holidays are over but I finally managed to get some video onto my computer - I've tried twice to upload it but it gets stuck, so I'll just post a couple of pictures until I figure out what the problem is. The first one is the boys playing with their new table tennis table.

The boys are back in school and busy with preparations for Science Olympiad. They have to build one project and study for 3 or 4 other categories. I'm coaching one team called Disease Detectives and am behind as usual! The competition is in about 2 weeks and hopefully we'll all be ready!

Today we took Angel to the vet for her shots and enjoyed a waiting room full of every variety of dog. Our favorite was a carrier full of 4 Yorkie puppies - they were so small and so cute. All the other dogs were friendly and well behaved except for Angel (she's 7 lbs. now) who growled at anyone who stood too close (while she shook so hard she almost fell off of my lap).

After the vet we went to the mall and the boys had haircuts. I absolutely love how they look and Ryan does too but Justin is mourning the loss of his locks. It didn't curb his appetite however and we ate at Sweet Tomatoes afterward. I love their soup and bread and am still full hours later!

The only other thing I can think of that's been going on lately is my battle with Comcast. Just after Christmas I bought a new TV for the living room. I got a really good deal on an open-box 52" Sony DPL HDTV at Circuit City. Of course to fully enjoy the HDTV you need to have HDTV cable. I called and ordered what they are calling "triple play" which includes cable tv, high speed internet and digital phone service. After I had calculated what I was spending on all of the services separately from different companies I actually end up saving around $60 per month and that is with the upgraded cable with the Comcast DVR. Long story short, this past week is the first week that all of the services have worked without issue (after 4 different people have been out to install/repair/whatever) and I hate their DVR. I miss my TIVO am on the list to have the TIVO upgrade to their machine. I can't wait!!! I love the TV and have spent too many hours staring at how beautiful the picture is, especially on the HD channels.

Time to get off of the couch and make a dent in my laundry pile!!