Name: Becky
Occupation: Student/Occassional Auxiliary Nurse/ABA Therapist/Serial traveller/owner of itchy feet
Home Towm: Bangor, North Wales
Current Location: Bangor



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Monday, November 06, 2006
Death etc  
Just because everyone needs a nice morbid post every now and then.
Warning: this might be very disjointed and nonsensical, feel free to pay no attention!

My second night shift last week was on Mulbarton which is an oncology (cancer) ward. During the hand over the nurse told us that she expected at one patient was going to die during our shift, which was something I've not had to deal with yet. It made the evening very strange. The gentleman was in a sideroom near to the entrance of the ward, so everytime I left the ward I had to pass his room and all the relatives who were sitting in there with him, and it makes you feel very guilty. I was leaving to go and heat up my dinner in the staffroom, or get sandwiches for other patients, etc, generally doing everything I would do during a normal shift, while they were tryng to come to terms with the fact that in the near future it was very likely that their husband/father/grandfather/uncle might pass away. My biggest decision that night would be what time to take my sleep break, theirs was whether to risk leaving him as he seemed stable, but knowing that he could change at anytime and they might not be able to make it back in time. I knew I couldn't do anything; his condition was at the stage where they stop doing observations (blood pressure, temperature, pluse etc), and they only give a set amount of certain drugs to keep the patient comfotable, and even if I could do something I still had to carry on to look after the other 17 patients in my care, but I still felt as though I shouldn't be acting as if everything was normal, because for this family it wasn't.
Fourtunatly there were no deaths while I was there, and I might be lucky enough to avoid them for a bit longer yet.
(I told you it wouldn't make any sense!)

On a lighter note, I'm off to Leeds until Saturday and then spending the weekend with my dear friends Katherine and Sally in Leicester, which will hopefully be alot of fun! (See, this is a blog about my travels Ruth!!!)

8:09 PM
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