This won't hurt a bit...

So this whole "nursing" thing seems to be working out really well, I must say. Phew. I'd really hate to be 43 days from graduation and think, "Smooth move, exlaxx.. Going back to school.. What were you THINKING?" Several very long shifts into it and I'm feeling more "in the groove".

The ICU is a busy place and everyone talks fast and in abbreviated code. I don't have to fake my, "Oh, yeah, totally. I get what you're saying. Oo, that sounds SERIOUS" face anymore. I'm getting it. I'm making connections. I know where the bathroom is and which chairs at the nurse's station to avoid because the doctors like to sit those and I hate getting "the look". The awesome experiences (not always for THEM, persay, but for me, they were totally awesome..) happen everyday and I'm learning new ways of disguising gross things so I can tell the Betrothed when I arrive home without him looking piqued. Bonus.

I had another one of those "Yes, THIS is why I'm in nursing" moments yesterday when my little man with either TB or Necrotizing Pneumonia (neither of which are a good thing.. but thankfully TB was ruled out meaning *I* don't have TB after hanging out with him..). Heavily sedated and Spanish speaking (the patient, that is) I would putter around his room in my whole outbreak getup (I swear to you I couldn't make this up if I tried..I had to wear the hood part. ) speaking what little Spanish I did know to his sedated self. When he woke up yesterday, ready to make a full recovery, I'm happy to say, he was kissing my hand and telling me in Spanish that he appreciated me being so nice to him while he was asleep and he thanked me for all of my kindness by trying to speak Spanish to him. He heard. Senora Via of my highschool years would be SO proud. {Little known, but heavily researched fact that hearing is the last thing to "go". Dying, sedated, comatose -- they can almost always hear and process the sounds. So talk on with your bad self.}

But what I really wanted to get up on my soap box about (and I seem to be doing that here a lot more, forgive me..) has to do with a patient experience I had last week. A young woman in her early 50s (yes, that is young considering what the mean age we usually see is..) died very, very suddenly of a bacterial infection that had not been caught by her regular doctor. It was terribly tragic. I stood across the ICU watching her devastated family come in, 2-by-2, to weep uncontrollably in each other's arms at her bedside. Out of all of this grief, however, they decided to donate her organs, which were young, healthy and still very much viable -- and very, very wanted. I loomed around the transplant coordinator as she called her contacts to tell them that they had a liver, lungs and kidneys for their patients. You could almost hear the elation and joy on the other end. 4 people were going to get a chance to live out of this tragic death. And that joy counteracted all the sadness a few feet away.

In my sly, sneaky, slithery way I managed to secure myself a spot in the OR during the organ harvest later that day. I will miss playing "the student" card in 43 days. In all honesty, they were happy to have me be there. Showing a future-nurse the benefits of organ donation only makes me one of their army when I'm on the floor -- I might be their first line of information with families.

Her bedside nurse and I brought her lifeless, but alive thanks to the ventilators et al that kept her oxygenated and perfused, body to the OR together. We helped to move her onto the operating table. Her left arm fell loose and I noticed she had something in her hand. Her nurse put her arm in front of me as I moved towards it. "It's a note from her daughter. She asked that we tape it to her hand so that she can have it with her during all of this." I looked closer and the only word I could make out on the folded paper was "Lucky". Truly, I had to turn away and blink hard to keep the tears from rolling down my face. What a word. "Lucky". She was lucky to have had this mother and their relationship? I don't know. But I know that her being here meant it was lucky to those other families rejoicing at their new chance at life. Lucky, indeed.

The whole process took over five hours (oh, my aching back and feet, let me tell you. Students don't sit in the OR.) . They flew in the transplant teams from all over the Eastern Seaboard to harvest, collect and return home to transplant. These scapel-slinging cowboys mosied into the OR like they owned it. Introduced themselves around and began their work.

The room was respectful -- all the while appreciating that this was still a person and not just a cavity of organs. It was an amazing procedure. "Amazing" hardly begins to cover it, really. Physicians from all over were on speaker phone in the OR as the surgeon measured and verified each organ. Collective breaths of relief were expelled when the voice on the other end would say, "That's perfect. Our recipient needs that size. We'll have them ready in 2:45." Each organ was removed in turn and the respective surgeon clutched it to himself lovingly as he walked to place it in the preservation fluids. He packed it up himself, said his goodbyes and left. Our patient was lovingly and respectfully put back together and prepared to go to the funeral home.

The transplant coordinator told me that often times they will have the donor family meet the organ recipient. It provides an element of closure for the family. She told me about a wife whose husband had passed very suddenly and donated his heart. The wife later met the recipient and wanted nothing more than to listen to her husband's heart beat in its new chest.

What kept me from bursting into tears over this tragic sadness was the thought of the families on the other side. Their joy. To have received "that call" today that they had the liver or the lungs or the kidney. See? And then the loss of this young woman wasn't all in vain.

So my soapbox moment today is to urge you to consider being an organ donor. Heaven forbid that anything happen to you when your organs are prime, but should it... Whatever you have or don't have on your driver's license doesn't matter. When the time comes, your family can override whatever you've elected -- you won't be able to argue. So make sure your family knows what your wishes are. Yes, even now. Last week I urged you to all make out your Advance Directives -- which, on some -- depending on the state -- indicates your wishes for organ donation.

I know. When did Cathy get so grim? It's all death, necrotizing-whatever, poopers and organ harvests to me now. I promise, when I'm a for-real nurse, this will all taper off. The funnies are still happening, really. I just felt this was more important to impart to you all.

But for a closing funny -- as a nursing student, we make boneheaded mistakes. They're not life threatening or dangerous, just boneheaded. For example. I keep forgetting to take the cap off of things. So I'm pushing and pushing and nothing's happening -- I start to worry -- and then I see the cap. Awesome. I was taking care of a dude last week who was receiving his medications down his feeding tube. So, you crush up things, mix it up, draw it up in this big plastic tipped plunger and push it down the feeding tube. No problem. Well, left in there by myself to manage this, I was mixing it all when I somehow ended up squirting his stool softener all over my face. Thankfully it wasn't his stool-stool, just the softener. So I stepped back. Took a breath, wiped off my face and resolved to try not to be such a bonehead anymore.

Don't be a bonehead. Donate your organs when you aren't using them anymore. (<-- did you like that? it was all smooth and unexpected..)