Lessons from a corpse

I was 20 then. It was just a few months before graduation, when I would have become a full-fledged adult with a bachelor’s degree in nursing. But for the moment I was focusing on being a good student nurse.

It was our first day in our clinical duty at the emergency room. We were on the morning shift, so we had a busy start. One of my assigned patients was a young male just a few years shy of 30, with the diagnosis of meningitis.

He was just one of the many patients I tended in the whole four years of my student-nurse days. But I remember him so well, and I don’t think I will ever forget him.

When I first saw him, it was as if he were in the intensive care unit: numerous attachments on his body, IV fluid dripping rapidly into a vein in his left hand, an endotracheal tube, and whatnot. But the fact was he was in the emergency room, his gurney tightly squeezed beside another gurney, in the far corner, as if he had just come in and been assigned a tiny space until a private room became vacant.

It turned out, however, that he had been in the hospital for more than three days. There was no room or ward space available for him.

I elbowed my way to his gurney to take his initial vital signs for the shift. He was warm—too warm for a living human body—and he was struggling to breathe. I noticed a number of small dark marks on his face, arms and chest; I suspected chicken pox, but I didn’t ask. He could barely move; only his eyes moved when I talked to him.

I loved talking to my patients, including this one. It meant giving him a nice, soothing affirmation that he’ll be okay, I’m here to take care of him, and that if he needs anything, I’m here from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. His SOs—significant others—looked at me tentatively, giving me a weak smile.

“I don’t think he’ll be okay,” the woman said. I was thinking she was his mother. “We brought him in early this week, when his fever was so high. It was only chicken pox. The doctor said the virus had reached his brain.”

I nodded. My suspicions were proven correct.

“I’m his aunt, by the way,” the woman continued. The man beside her was silent, his eyes cast down to the white tiled floor, seemingly in deep thought. “He’s his brother,” she said, indicating the man beside her.

“His temperature is at 40 degrees right now, ma’am. I’ll get some water to give him a sponge bath,” I offered.

“It’s okay,” the aunt said. “I don’t think it’ll work. He’s…” And then she stopped talking as her gaze fell on the patient.

“It’s fine, ma’am. I’ll do it for you. It may help,” I said. I smiled at her and asked to be excused. I had other patients to see.

Hours passed. I had a rough day: catheters, ECGs, IVTT meds, tepid sponge baths, and hourly taking of vital signs. But my day had yet to be busier. I went back to my chicken-pox-turned-meningitis patient to take his vital signs again, and to check whether his fever had subsided.

“Hello, sir. I’m here again,” I said to my patient even though I knew he couldn’t answer me. But his eyes darted toward my direction, as if to confirm that he had heard me.

I proceeded to check his temperature while counting his respiratory and pulse rates—an old trick to save time, as well as to keep the patient from being too conscious that I’m counting his breaths. After checking his respiratory rate, I checked his radial pulse—the inside of the wrist—but the pulse was too thin, almost as if there was nothing there. I checked his carotid pulse—the side of the neck—but there was none. I told myself I’d check again later, when I’m done with taking his blood pressure. But as I took his blood pressure, I heard nothing, no systolic or diastolic tick.

The aunt looked at me. Perhaps the worry was showing on my face.

“Is he gone?” she asked nervously.

I couldn’t tell her. We student nurses have no right to tell the significant others; that is the doctor’s duty. I called my colleague to watch over my patient while I went to get a doctor.

The doctor checked my patient’s heartbeat and pulse. Then he performed CPR. Rechecked. By the look on his face, I could tell. There was nothing. No pulse, no breathing.

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but the patient is gone. We did our best,” the doctor told the aunt.

The brother cried silently, the aunt sobbed. I gave her a nod of sympathy and proceeded to unhook the patient’s tubes. That done, I took him to the back of the emergency room for postmortem care.

He had died in my arms. I was probably the last person he saw before drifting away, and that is something I just can’t brush off from my memory.

My patient, the first corpse I have ever touched in my life—the first and last so far—taught me a lot as I think about my life now, now that I’m an adult with a job and a life of my own, now as I battle depression and suicidal thoughts.

He taught me that life can be taken from you at any time, whether you’re young or old, whether you have cancer or chicken pox.

He taught me that Death is like a thief in the night, just lurking in the corner while you live as you must, and then in one moment, seizes you and wrings you dry until you’re lifeless.

He taught me that Death will come to you when your time on earth has come. It will come whatever you’re doing, however successful or hopeless you are, because Death is a blind bastard that just takes you effortlessly, as if he were your real owner and Life had just borrowed you.

My dear patient, wherever you are, may you be at rest. Thank you for sharing your life with me, even for only a few hours, and for trusting me to be with you as you crossed over. I will always remember you.

Kristenne Marie Gicum, 24, a registered nurse, is a marketing copywriter for an Internet software development company. She practiced nursing for a few months before switching professions. “I’m still a nurse at heart, though,” she says. “I think I will always be a nurse.”