Life is Precious

We treat them differently. We don't mean to, but its hard not to.

Most of the patients that we deal with in critical care want to live. They are struggling with every ounce of their being to to hold on to this precious life for as long as they possibly can. Everyone involved in their care works feverishly to give them every possible chance to do just that. It is a constant battle that none of us wants to lose.

But, occasionally, we are faced with the patient who does not share our respect for and our love of human life. They are the ones who have tried just as desperately to end their lives. If they do happen to make it past the ER to us, it simply means that they did not do a very good job.

How do you deal with a grief stricken family in one room who's loved one lies franticly gasping at their last few breaths of life, while in the room next door you have an otherwise healthy but angry patient cursing and screaming at the top of their lungs demanding to be left alone so they can die.

It is really hard not to get an attitude. Sometimes you just want to rip their good lungs out and give them to the guy next door who would appreciate and cherish them. But that thought quickly passes. These people are usually just as desperate - they just don't know it.

I can not imagine the intense pain that must lead to this type of behavior.

We have on occasion saved a few. We have cleaned their lungs, repaired their hearts, detoxified their livers, and cleared their minds - if only for awhile.

I remember one young man in particular who walked back in to the CCU on Christmas eve to shake our hands and hug our necks and thank us for saving his life.

He was an intentional cocaine overdose who had come to us 3 months before. He had been as good as dead for two of those three months. For weeks that he laid paralyzed in a rotating cage, swollen beyond human recognition, hooked to more tubes, drains, and IV lines, than one nurse could possibly handle. But God decided to give him another chance at life.

I remember giving him "The Speech". The Speech goes something like this:
"You are a walking miracle. By all odds shouldn't be standing here today. You have been given a second chance by God. You can not go back to your old life or you will surely die. You have a new life now - make it a good one."

He thanked me, hugged me, and walked away. I found his obituary two months later. He died of a cocaine overdose...