I guess it had to happen sometime...
Today one of our patients died in the ER. He was a 3 year old who had a cardiac catheterization yesterday. He spent the night in PICU and was released this morning to go home. In the car on the way home his parents said he seemed not quite right and turned around and brought him back into the ER. There he arrested on the table and never regained consciousness. It's really hard to listen to those little heartbeats struggling to keep up with the demands of the little bodies and see the scars that mangle so many little chests everyday. I don't pretend to know what they are going through, all I know is that every night before I go to bed I hit my knees and thank God for my sons' health. Those parents now have to go home and wash the dishes that their son ate breakfast out of before they came to the hospital yesterday, and wash the clothes that are still dirty from him wearing them the day before, pick up the toys that he probably scattered while he waited for them to get ready to go. Like I said, I don't pretend to know what they are going through, and I hope to never know. The doctor who was with him when he died, actually the one to pronounce his death took it hard, as did the doctor who saw him in the clinic on a regular basis. They have spent their lives studying the heart and trying to understand it, but it wasn't enough to help this little one today. From the sounds of it he either had a massive stroke or a pulmonary embolism, whatever it was I'm not interested in finding out because it won't affect the outcome no matter what it was. I'm just trying to remember why I wanted to be a nurse, and more so why I took a job in pediatrics......