My First Code Blue

Very nice.

Writing style is a little confusing at first, but your message is loud and clear.Death is hard on all, even when it is the death of someone who's quite far up in years and has lived a long, long life. Even when the pt and/or loved ones have suffered for a long time and welcome death.We nurses see it a lot, must learn to deal with it, learn to handle our emotions well enough to function when our patients need us to do the very last things for them that we can. It gets easier, don't you think?

Nice use of en media res there! I love when writing styles are changed up....and this made me tear up. Thank you so much. From a nursing student. Oh, and I saw a deceased person for the first time in the hospital last week during clinical (I assisted the nurses with post mortem care)....I thought to myself about how her family felt, how she felt about dying, what she liked to do when she was alive, what her job was like....and I noticed she was in decerebrate position, and I wondered how long she had had brain damage before she died. She wasn't just a patient to me, she was a person. I'm so glad to read an article like this. She wasn't my patient, but it got me thinking.

Nice job. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks... Very moving.

Thank you for the article. Sometimes we need to step back and look at our patients, as people not a medical number.This reminder is a great example.

Experienced my first code today so this really hits home

Very well written.

Beautifully written and very moving. Thanks for sharing.

I wonder if we ever forget our first code...I know that mine is still fresh in my mind, four years later. Sweet old guy in a SNF, very loving family, who was on dialysis. I had talked to him many times in the dining room, but this was the first time he my patient. I changed his hand bandages (he had fallen a few days prior), and he kissed my hand in thanks. When I returned from dinner about 20 minutes later, he was dead in the gerichair at the nurses station, but nobody had yet realized it. We tried CPR, to no avail, and EMS called it. I am still grateful that we had a chance to talk before he died - he expressed no complaints, denied pain, normal vital signs; he just closed his eyes and died. We should all pass so easily. The MD said that she kept meaning to discuss his code status with his family, but hadn't had the opportunity; she wasn't surprised by his death.

I remember my first code quite vividly... Actually, all the codes I've worked have been ingrained in my memory. It's as if the situations are etched in my memory. I don't know if I'll ever forget those situations... Also - where I worked as a med/surg nurse - we took care of a lot of DNR/DNI patients that may or may not have been comfort care only. Even knowing all about the patients, and even if they are at peace with their prognosis, it's still difficult to have a patient die during a shift at work.

A wonderful, sad, read! Thank you for sharing...I hope that I don't have to die in a hospital, and God willing pass away while reading a "good-book" like my great-grandmother did in 1971...