Fifty Three

It should have never gotten to this point.

This patient should have lived the rest of their life in relative comfort and joy after surviving a grievous GSW a few years ago. Yes, they lost the use of their limbs and has to shit in a bag. They have family who should have cared for them or in the very least if they were incapable, find another way for them to live the rest of their days as a human being instead of a slowly decomposing organism, food for any number of microbes and insects.

Instead they put him in a room, turned off the lights and closed the door.

Words will do an injustice to this person's condition. Horrible is the best word I suppose. If you did not feel outrage over this extreme case of neglect then I would challenge you to feel emotion ever again.

We threw everything we had at this person's illness including the kitchen sink then we tore out the wall and pulled out the plumbing and threw that in as well. A valiant attempt at saving a life. We spent hours in the room hanging meds, cleaning the patient all while trying to keep the maggots out of our clothes and shoes. It did no good.

The tragedy did not end there.

The patient coded then died of massive sepsis in our emergency room. Then if the sadness of this was not enough the ICU attending decided to dress down the ER nurse in a very public manner in front of the patients room. It was damn shameful the deceased patient was not even in a body bag yet.

It was all a bit hard to swallow. I nearly walked out just to get a shower and a drink. I did not leave, I'm a professional and we were of course up to our eyeballs with sick patients. We all swallowed this and carried on. The rest of the shift passed on slowly and as all shifts do ended.

I stopped by the liquor store on the way home and bought a tall bottle of whiskey then went home took a shower until the hot water ran out, drank whiskey until I could not see straight and watched goofy comedies and laughed until my sides hurt.

I'm so tired of seeing pain and suffering. I need to find a new career.