I have been a part time volunteer at the local V. A. Medical Center
for going on eighteen years. This story is about my working on one
of the inpatient floors.
I had learned about the meaning of Do Not Resusitate when I saw the
letters, DNR, on one of the charts at the nurses' desk. I found it hard to
believe that someone would want to be designated as a DNR. But, as
I have come to realize, many people do.
At the VA there are many patients that never get any visitors. And, I can
tell you visitors would help. I would load up a cart with cups, ice, pitchers,
and various other necessary items and go make my rounds. In each
room there would be two, three or four patients. And I would spend
some time with everyone.
Some were in private rooms; they were the sadest of all. Because the
only people they saw were the doctors, nurses and nurses aids. Every
single person responded to my visits in a postitive manner. I sometimes
think that I got as much from my work as they did.
One day I was standing at the nurses' desk when some nurses and one
doctor came off the elevator pushing a hospital bed. They quickly turned
the corner and pushed the bed into one of the private rooms.
The doctor walked to the desk and put the patient's chart on the counter.
On the front were the letters DNR in big bold red letters.
A half hour later I went into that patients room. He was awake. He had
tubes seemingly everywhere. And he was still intubated, and could
not speak. I began talking to him. I introduced myself and tried to make
him feel more at ease.
Then, I looked at his face. I will never forget how he looked. Never had
I seen anyone with so much stark, raving fear. The man began shaking
and he appeared to be trying to tell me why he was so scared. I told
him that I would contact one of the RN's and he could try to tell her what
was bothering him.
So, off I went to get a nurse. I found one and told her what I saw and
she went immediately to his room. The man was still shaking and
trying to communicate to her. I continued making my rounds to the
other patients.
Later, the nurse told me that he was just nervous because he had just
come out of surgery and was not prepared to wake up and find himself
in a hospital bed attached to machines. And then she dropped the bomb
that he was terminal and a DNR.
Every day I went in to see him and noticed that he was getting worse.
The medical staff's duty to him was to make him as comfortable as
possible; and nothing more. On the fifth day the patient passed away.
A nurse and a nurse's assistant disconnected all the machines. They
removed the tubes and put his body in a shroud and put it on a
gurney to be taken to the morgue.
Taking the body to the morgue was the duty of the nurse's assistant.
She came to me and asked me to go with her. She told me that she
was able to do everything but push a patient's body to the morgue.
So, off we went to the morgue.
As we walked to the morgue I wondered then, as I do now, what
would the outcome have been if the patient had not been a DNR?
And as we made our way along the hallway to the elevator I could
still remember how terribly afraid he was. And how much he wanted
to be comforted. And how he needed to have comfort from his fear.
And the fact that he never had one person come to visit him. The
only visitor he got was me; and I could do nothing for him.
