This evening, on a night shift we lost a man. His care had been deemed purely palliative whilst not withdrawing any clinical interventions he was no long of a resuscitation status and our main plan of care was to maintain levels of comfort.
Before I started to train as a nurse I had made myself become somewhat redundant to feelings. I could dodge them. But, as I have previously said - nursing has taken my barriers and removed them so far from me and I have realised just how much I can care for other people. And, there is a sadness about death, even when you do not personally have connection to them. There is a part of you who looks at that deceased soul as someone and someone's someone, and you consider how you'd like someone you love to be treated. I think that's a wonderful consideration in nursing. Think about the person you love most of all and think just how delicately you'd want them to be spoken to and touched. You'd want someone to care and be gentle with them when they are peaceful.
Anyway, after a sudden deterioration the patient passed away. Out of choice I requested to observe the doctor certify the death. It was the middle of the night and without the usual rush for bed movement it was nice to let the gentlemen just be peaceful for moment in the room in which he had resided for what seemed like so long. The doctor talked me through the acts used to make certain of a passing. It is novel that regardless of the fact you know they have passed, you expect them to be roused. It's a sad reality when there is nothing but nothingness. And that is what death becomes of a person, it turns them into an emptiness and a nothingness, they become a shell, a moment of everything they were.
After the confirmation process we played his favourite opera music, the healthcare-assistant gently closing his eyelids. There was something ever respectable about this man and we wanted to maintain his dignity after his life. As we rolled him the last of his vomit lying in his oesophageal passage dispelled and I cleaned his face softly, again. I closed his glassy eyes each time they opened, so he could sleep and we put his dentures in so he was himself, so he had his own face. It'll sounds strange but we spoke to him for the entirety, every time we rolled him, before a final goodbye when we covered his face over with the shroud covers. It was easy to talk to him, treating him with the same respect as a living person and ensuring his dignity and privacy. And, before we covered him for a final time I brushed his hair. It was important to me to know he would have been accepting of his appearance. Why should a person be dressed in a shroud and not looking how they would hope to be presented. He seemed like he was once a man of stature and a respected man, and he had a loving family who I imagined would want him to be his most presentable for the last time.
It is undeniably saddening how all life hollows down to is a shell of a body, a corpse that is stopped and empty. But it is a body that was once filled with a soul somebody else loved unconditionally, maybe people collectively loved his soul. They had once walked this planet and breathed this air so for me it was important for them and the piece of mind of those who loved them that I maintained the privacy and dignity whilst performing this final act of care.
Last offices fulfils that final step of holistic caring. It is caring for a shell that is defenceless and now timeless, it is the final moments shared with somebody who was someone's everything. In hindsight it is a precious experience that should not be disregarded. It is one of the last human touches and it is one of the last acts of kindness. It is important. It is destiny. Last offices are typically hard. The body is succumbing to numerous processes and essentially it can be an emotive experience but it is one that should be performed with grace.
- Loola.
Before I started to train as a nurse I had made myself become somewhat redundant to feelings. I could dodge them. But, as I have previously said - nursing has taken my barriers and removed them so far from me and I have realised just how much I can care for other people. And, there is a sadness about death, even when you do not personally have connection to them. There is a part of you who looks at that deceased soul as someone and someone's someone, and you consider how you'd like someone you love to be treated. I think that's a wonderful consideration in nursing. Think about the person you love most of all and think just how delicately you'd want them to be spoken to and touched. You'd want someone to care and be gentle with them when they are peaceful.
Anyway, after a sudden deterioration the patient passed away. Out of choice I requested to observe the doctor certify the death. It was the middle of the night and without the usual rush for bed movement it was nice to let the gentlemen just be peaceful for moment in the room in which he had resided for what seemed like so long. The doctor talked me through the acts used to make certain of a passing. It is novel that regardless of the fact you know they have passed, you expect them to be roused. It's a sad reality when there is nothing but nothingness. And that is what death becomes of a person, it turns them into an emptiness and a nothingness, they become a shell, a moment of everything they were.
After the confirmation process we played his favourite opera music, the healthcare-assistant gently closing his eyelids. There was something ever respectable about this man and we wanted to maintain his dignity after his life. As we rolled him the last of his vomit lying in his oesophageal passage dispelled and I cleaned his face softly, again. I closed his glassy eyes each time they opened, so he could sleep and we put his dentures in so he was himself, so he had his own face. It'll sounds strange but we spoke to him for the entirety, every time we rolled him, before a final goodbye when we covered his face over with the shroud covers. It was easy to talk to him, treating him with the same respect as a living person and ensuring his dignity and privacy. And, before we covered him for a final time I brushed his hair. It was important to me to know he would have been accepting of his appearance. Why should a person be dressed in a shroud and not looking how they would hope to be presented. He seemed like he was once a man of stature and a respected man, and he had a loving family who I imagined would want him to be his most presentable for the last time.
It is undeniably saddening how all life hollows down to is a shell of a body, a corpse that is stopped and empty. But it is a body that was once filled with a soul somebody else loved unconditionally, maybe people collectively loved his soul. They had once walked this planet and breathed this air so for me it was important for them and the piece of mind of those who loved them that I maintained the privacy and dignity whilst performing this final act of care.
Last offices fulfils that final step of holistic caring. It is caring for a shell that is defenceless and now timeless, it is the final moments shared with somebody who was someone's everything. In hindsight it is a precious experience that should not be disregarded. It is one of the last human touches and it is one of the last acts of kindness. It is important. It is destiny. Last offices are typically hard. The body is succumbing to numerous processes and essentially it can be an emotive experience but it is one that should be performed with grace.
- Loola.