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Hey Everyone:

 

First, I offer my condolences about the loss of Racegal120 too. I just don't know what else to say. 

 

I'm an x-ray tech. I don't deal with patients quite as much as nurses and doctors. I do help nurses as much as I can (like repositioning patients in bed, or helping get them to a toilet). However, I have witnessed sad moments because I have to respond to emergencies too. I don't know what the deal is, but for the first time in almost a decade since I've been at my little hospital we're having several families lose loved ones during the holiday season. Incredibly, pneumonia still claims many people. 

 

This all began the day after Thanksgiving. A patient sitting in his chair and chatting suddenly had heart failure. It was like a movie scene with with nurses all scrambling around, people taking turns doing chest compressions, the shock paddles, the grieving wife understandably being hysterical pleading to her husband to come back. 

 

Thirty minutes of doing all that could be done did nothing. I later helped a nurse prepare his body for the funeral home to take him. 

 

I just want all of you to know we hate it when we lose a patient - especially during the holidays. 

 

I had to do a portable chest x-ray on an older gentleman in his bed this morning. I've gotten acquainted with his wife and family due to his long stay. Laws and ethics are such that I couldn't tell them how bad his pneumonic lungs look now compared to prior x-rays - like thickening overcast weather. I couldn't tell or even hint how the end is near. However, I couldn't help breaking down so to speak, put aside the usual decorum, and express to the sweet wife how sorry I was she was having to deal with all this during the holidays. I just couldn't help myself. I just had to show some sympathy and humanity. 

 

My heart goes out to Racegal120's family too. 

 

I've gotten the impression it's all a numbers game to hospital administrators ($$$). That ticks me off. However, I want you all to know that those of us on the floor actually helping patients do fight to win. We try to win - especially during the holidays.

 

I want to say don't drink, don't smoke, eat veggies, exercise, stay hydrated, and get sleep, etc. 

 

But most importantly tell those you love that you love them - especially during the holidays. 

 

 

 

 

 

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A difficult profession indeed.  As a long retired RN, the stories not told about patients literally dying in your arms.  Literally.  Yep.  Or just being asked to and holding the hand of dying patients.  Who do.  Tough profession.  Probably in its own way more difficult than Fire Fighting.  There it is just quick and fast and then the hand off to the folks who work in the hospitals.  Merry Christmas to all ... if possible.

 

HB of CJ (old old coot) ex FF PM RN.

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Years ago when my mother was dying of lung cancer in the hospital, I was with her (drove all day and night from Quantico to Lubbock Texas) and she started choking.  i believe i was 28, Infantryman and Drill Instructor, but damn if I could force that suction tube down my mothers throat with her body flailing about.  I tried, but just couldn't do it.  IDK...I think its different when they are your parents.  Anyway, her nurse was probably the nicest Nurse I have ever met....I just jumped out of the room, yelled down the hallway at her and she came running.  She did what I could not do.  God Bless her for having the strength.  Later that night, my mother choked/suffocated in her sleep and passed.   The next day, as we were all in the room gathered around her, she was too.  Holding our hands and crying along with us.

 

A few days later myself and my brother took her the biggest set of flower arrangements we could afford.  Probably one of the nicest, compassionate professional's I have ever had the honor to meet and know.

 

God Bless you all for doing such an incredibly hard and tough job.  Thank you.

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Death comes to us all.  Sad but inevitable fact.  The good news and the reason for the Christmas season is the gift of Jesus Christ -- the sting of death is taken away from those who believe in Him and His sacrifice.  My death with last about as long as a blink of the eye -- I shut my eyes on this earth and will open them in eternity!

 

Merry Christmas!!!

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Death comes to us all.  Sad but inevitable fact.  The good news and the reason for the Christmas season is the gift of Jesus Christ -- the sting of death is taken away from those who believe in Him and His sacrifice.  My death with last about as long as a blink of the eye -- I shut my eyes on this earth and will open them in eternity!

 

Merry Christmas!!!

There is no death for some....it's a transition.

Read John 3:16 for directions:

 

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

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Thanks for the kind words Squeaky Sandi will be sorely missed by so many people. Family's really struggling still to come to grips and every holiday from now own is going to be rough for sure. I surely understand what you're saying about seeing it all from the other side man. I can't even imagine what that has to be like all the time but especially over the holidays.  :(  Thank you for all the work you do and the good you guys all do.

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Years ago, my Mother passed unexpectedly at 00:01 on December 26. It had been a wonderful Christmas, and she never let on anything was wrong, and God bless her, she managed to make sure she made it to the next day. As soon as it was the 26th, she closed her eyes and was gone. I still miss her every day, but celebrate the irresistible force, iron will and tender heart that was MOM!

 I still had small children when she passed, and know that she made it through till the 26th , just so she would not spoil Christmas!

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