Moving Dead People

A patient in CCU had been taken off of life-support and stubbornly refused to die right away, so it became necessary to find a place to dump transfer her to make room for patients in CCU who might actually survive the night. I really hate it when they give us patients for the sole purpose of watching them die.

Right before she was to be transferred, we got a phone call that the patient had died. What a relief. While we were celebrating our good fortune, who should show up? Our transfer patient. At first I thought that they were giving us a dead patient. That wouldn't be the first time that has happened, but it quickly became apparent that she was still breathing, sort of.

I whispered to the transferring nurse that we were told that she had already died, but he said it was "a dude who died. This is a dudette."

We accepted the patient and helped slide her into bed. It was a juicy process. She had massive edema and fluid was leaking from her skin like a wet sponge. We put towels around her to absorb some of the liquid.

Her morphine drip was dosed at a level that would be fatal for most people; she was already comatose with slow respirations and her blood pressure was critically low and falling. We barely got her in bed before our dudette died.

Having a patient die is draining. The grieving family must be comforted while tons of forms are filled out. Phone calls have to be made and then the body must be wrapped and removed. If CCU had kept her just a few minutes longer, they could have finished what they started instead of dumping on us.

She was taken out on a gurney with a sheet over her body. It was so obvious what was under the sheet. We do have a dead body gurney with a special bottom that allows the body to be hidden, but the transporters are too lazy to get it.

When the elevator door opened, some visitors got out and passed the gurney. Most people grimace or look away when they see a dead body being rolled out, but either these visitors didn't notice the body or they saw nothing unnatural about a dead person being wheeled out of a nursing unit. That's something that I will never get used to.