So, finally, my patient died.

Once in a very long while you get somebody under your hands who ought to have been let go months before.We had somebody like that the other month: multiple surgeries for a brain tumor that was not going to go away (grade IV glioblastoma), multiple rounds of chemo and radiation, and in the middle of all of that, a surgery for an abscess that led to wound-vac sponges all down one side of the poor sot's body.The spouse didn't want to let them go. The mother didn't want to let them go. The brother didn't particularly say one way or the other.Ever smell a person who is, quite literally, rotting from the inside out? It's not fun.Because, see, a glioblastoma (that's the most common form of malignant brain tumor and is, thankfully, still very rare) slowly takes away your ability to think, speak, walk, control your bodily functions. Then it starts to take away your ability to breathe. And your brain's ability to control things like its temperature and blood pressure. And, eventually, it will invade the areas of your brain that register pain. At that point, you will be in pain all the time every day forever for as long as you last.Yeah.It sucked. For us, as well as for the patient.The only reason I can think of that this person was kept alive was that they had a significant pension that would've ended upon their death.So their spouse, the person who was supposed to keep their best interests in mind, kept them alive for two entire months in order to get money.I very rarely get *existent...
Source: Head Nurse - Category: Nurses Authors: Source Type: blogs