Rotting To Death

Everyone who visits our floor, says the same thing. "What's that smell?" It smells like there is a putrifying dead carcass lying in the hot sun and there's not a thing that we can do about it. Our patient with gangrene is slowly rotting to death. Both of his legs are now completely black like a burnt pot roast. We keep his door closed, our door to the balcony open and we're wearing masks with tea bags inside, but the odor is still strong enough to trigger dry heaves in susceptible people.

To help deal with the stress, people have started making jokes. One nurse said to be careful handling his legs because they might fall off. (She may have been serious.) Another nurse said that the smell makes her hungry because it reminds her of her home country with dead animals lying in the road and rats rotting inside the walls.

Some painters closed the balcony door because they wanted to paint and didn't want the paint fumes to come inside the hospital. We insisted that the door stay open and yelled out to them that we love the smell of paint. We're so desperate that even paint fumes are welcome.

If a pet was allowed to suffer like this, the owner could be criminally prosecuted for animal abuse. Because this is a human, we are required to let him die a slow, natural, agonizing death. Although we are keeping him medicated, this is way beyond the help of narcotics. The moaning and groaning is also wearing us down. I hope his suffering ends soon. No one deserves to die like this.

At the beginning of the shift, I noticed that a substantial amount of morphine in his pump was unaccounted for. I doubt that the previous nurse stole it, I'm sure that she bolused him with the morphine and them erased the memory in the pump. Her heart is pure and I will not say anything. How can you fault someone who can't bare to see someone suffer and so risks her job and license to try and make a patient a little more comfortable?