The night I watched a heart stop beating.

Sometimes you get to work and you receive report and it’s not real clear whether it is going to be a good night or a bad one. Ya know your patients aren’t necessarily the greatest but you have definetely seen worse. Other nights it is glaring obvious that it’s gonna be one of those tough need to debrief at breakfast type of nights. Well this night was the later of the two. As I turned the corner to go to the break room to put my lunch in the fridge there was the shiny red indicator. A open crash cart sitting in a patient’s door way. (DING DING DING) If that wasn’t clear enough I could also see a clearly distraught family in our solarium and a ton of wore out day shift nurses. Oh joy let the fun fest begin… Soon I heard a familar story. This patient had cancer. Wasn’t feeling well. Came in through the ER and was admitted into ICU just in time to go into cardiac arrest. The doctors weren’t hopeful. They are waiting for all of the family to arrive. This was not my patient but I knew this nurse was going to need a lot of help. The phones were ringing off the hook and she was talking to a million doctors already… As soon as I assessed my patient and got everything up to date there I checked on her she was fumbling with the computer looking for a doctors number I offered to find the number and put out the page for her. When that doctor called back she and I were hanging blood. He ordered a ton of things then another doctor called and next thing I know there were three nurses running around just trying to keep this patient stable. Just at the moment I thought we were getting things under control the rest of the family arrived and we paged the chaplain because they decided to stop treatment. The chaplain arrived respiratory extubated the patient and then the moment of truth. All eyes were on the heart monitor. For 13 excruciating minutes I watched as the heart beat got slower and slower and started to get very irregular and then it just stopped beating all together. At that moment I decide now would be as good a time as any to do post mortem care. I offered to help and the nurse was happy to have the help. I was not ready for what was waiting in that room. I was not prepared for the cold skin or the still chest. As I took out the IV’s I didn’t know what to expect. I mean if the heart is not beating does the skin still bleed? The answer is yes and I couldn’t get it to stop. When holding pressure didn’t work I did the next thing all nurses do to stop bleeding. I held the arm in the air. Only this time the arm was rigid and slow to move. As we turned the patient over to change the sheets I could feel that the sheets underneath were still warm. I am thankful that this patient didn’t have to suffer too long and I’m glad I got to have this experience on a patient that was not mine. I was not personally attached and I didn’t even know an extensive history and it was still so hard.