nurse chrissi
Rock n' Roll Doggie FOB
This Christmas I was prepared to throw myself a full on, no holds barred “I’m miserable and sad” pity party since I had to work Christmas Eve and Christmas Day night shift from 1900-0700. While my friends and family gathered around to celebrate and in general have good times and merriment I was driving to work in a slushy snow to coordinate between four units of critical ill patients and other RN’s that felt as merry about spending the holidays in the ICU as I did. It is really amazing how easy it is to fall into a mood that is completely self centered around your own personal sense of entitlement and gratification.
While I can’t go into the specific details of the case I accepted a patient into our ICU from an outlying hospital who had, for no apparent reason, showered unknown blood clots from her heart to her brain. Keep in mind that the day before this was an apparently healthy young woman who had gone out with her friends the night before. She was now unresponsive, unstable, and in need of getting to a hospital with more experienced neurologists than the hospital she was currently at could provide her. The patient was also in her early 30s which in ICU years still just a baby. My normal patient age is around 70 so anything less than that gets my attention.
She arrived to the hospital of Christmas Eve night and after going through a battery of procedures it was discovered that despite all of our best efforts she was declared brain dead shortly before midnight on Christmas Eve. No person who works in a hospital relishes the idea of calling a family member to tell them that their loved one is not going to get any better but it takes on a whole different level of wrongness when you have to do it on a holiday.
After a family meeting, the husband and her parents decided the best thing to do was to attempt to donate whatever organs were still viable. This is not an easy decision - it is very easy (and completely normal) for family members to be so consumed by their own grief that the idea of a surgeon harvesting organs from someone who still has a beating heart is unbearable. Even if you sign the back of your drivers license your family ultimately has the final decision concerning organ donation. Her family could have gone down the “why us” and “why now during Christmas” route and none of the ICU staff would have thought poorly of them. This, for lack of a better word, sucked
From a medical standpoint the staff had to now go into overdrive. The local transplant organization was contacted and their staff basically camped out in the ICU ordering the necessary tests and procedures need to assess for organ viability. The hospitals own MD’s on staff were asked to come on Christmas Day to perform procedures and the nursing staff had to bring in an extra RN as the patient became a 1:1. By the time I arrived to work on Christmas Day the transplant team had found recipients for almost all of her viable organs. That means that over half a dozen people received calls on Christmas Day that they would be receive a new organ and a new lease on life.
By late in the night four different surgical teams had flown in from around the country to help harvest the organs and fly them back to their respective hospitals for transplantation. My hospitals surgical OR team was called in and we had everyone in place to take her down to the surgical suite. At this time it was time for her family to say goodbye to her. The experience was both life affirming and physically gut wrenching. Her husband and parents stayed until the very end loving on her and telling her how much they would miss her. These people had every right to be angry, mean, hateful and spiteful - but they didn’t. They had every right to question a higher power why this had to happen to a young person who had so much to live for. Instead they hugged the staff (who at this time - myself included - was bawling along with the family) and thanked us for helping them find hope in a tragedy. She was taken to OR and was taken off of life support shortly after. It is possible that one of the recipients received their new organ in the final hours of Christmas Day.
I’m sharing this story with you all for a couple of reasons. It is really easy to fall into self pity because we don’t get what we want or don’t have the life we feel we are entitled to have. I was there on Saturday and more than likely I will revert to my old ways soon and throw myself another pity party for some stupid reason. Right now I’m holding my family and friends a little tighter and unabashedly telling them how much I love them (this includes many on this site
) For now however I’m going to take with me that there is hope in the face of tragedy, truly selfless and good people in the world and that Christmas miracle come in all different forms.
While I can’t go into the specific details of the case I accepted a patient into our ICU from an outlying hospital who had, for no apparent reason, showered unknown blood clots from her heart to her brain. Keep in mind that the day before this was an apparently healthy young woman who had gone out with her friends the night before. She was now unresponsive, unstable, and in need of getting to a hospital with more experienced neurologists than the hospital she was currently at could provide her. The patient was also in her early 30s which in ICU years still just a baby. My normal patient age is around 70 so anything less than that gets my attention.
She arrived to the hospital of Christmas Eve night and after going through a battery of procedures it was discovered that despite all of our best efforts she was declared brain dead shortly before midnight on Christmas Eve. No person who works in a hospital relishes the idea of calling a family member to tell them that their loved one is not going to get any better but it takes on a whole different level of wrongness when you have to do it on a holiday.
After a family meeting, the husband and her parents decided the best thing to do was to attempt to donate whatever organs were still viable. This is not an easy decision - it is very easy (and completely normal) for family members to be so consumed by their own grief that the idea of a surgeon harvesting organs from someone who still has a beating heart is unbearable. Even if you sign the back of your drivers license your family ultimately has the final decision concerning organ donation. Her family could have gone down the “why us” and “why now during Christmas” route and none of the ICU staff would have thought poorly of them. This, for lack of a better word, sucked
From a medical standpoint the staff had to now go into overdrive. The local transplant organization was contacted and their staff basically camped out in the ICU ordering the necessary tests and procedures need to assess for organ viability. The hospitals own MD’s on staff were asked to come on Christmas Day to perform procedures and the nursing staff had to bring in an extra RN as the patient became a 1:1. By the time I arrived to work on Christmas Day the transplant team had found recipients for almost all of her viable organs. That means that over half a dozen people received calls on Christmas Day that they would be receive a new organ and a new lease on life.
By late in the night four different surgical teams had flown in from around the country to help harvest the organs and fly them back to their respective hospitals for transplantation. My hospitals surgical OR team was called in and we had everyone in place to take her down to the surgical suite. At this time it was time for her family to say goodbye to her. The experience was both life affirming and physically gut wrenching. Her husband and parents stayed until the very end loving on her and telling her how much they would miss her. These people had every right to be angry, mean, hateful and spiteful - but they didn’t. They had every right to question a higher power why this had to happen to a young person who had so much to live for. Instead they hugged the staff (who at this time - myself included - was bawling along with the family) and thanked us for helping them find hope in a tragedy. She was taken to OR and was taken off of life support shortly after. It is possible that one of the recipients received their new organ in the final hours of Christmas Day.
I’m sharing this story with you all for a couple of reasons. It is really easy to fall into self pity because we don’t get what we want or don’t have the life we feel we are entitled to have. I was there on Saturday and more than likely I will revert to my old ways soon and throw myself another pity party for some stupid reason. Right now I’m holding my family and friends a little tighter and unabashedly telling them how much I love them (this includes many on this site
) For now however I’m going to take with me that there is hope in the face of tragedy, truly selfless and good people in the world and that Christmas miracle come in all different forms.
