are you a believer of “time”?

you know, the argument or idea that we all die, when it is our “time”. it doesn’t matter where we are, or what we are doing, if it is our “time”, we will go. nothing, or no one, can stop us from passing. that somehow, in some unexplainable nature of things, there is something or someone beyond ourselves that allows death to happen at the intended “time”.

or do you advocate the thought that there are deaths that are simply caused by others’ stupidity, carelessness, and thoughtlessness?

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i have been a bedside nurse for a total of 9 years now. i know that is a short time compared to a lot of nurses, but just like the veteran bedside nurses, i have seen, touched, smelled, and faced death so many times, it almost seems ordinary. in those 9 years, i have witnessed deaths of different kinds.

there are patients who come in with very simple problems. silently, we often question why they are wasting their time in a creepy hospital room when they could have just rested in the comfort of their homes and get better without medical intervention. a few days later, in some unbelievable twist of fate, these very same relatively healthy people die. they die unexpectedly. usually, there would be all kinds of scientific medical explanations. these explanations sometimes make their deaths reasonable, but it doesn’t always make it acceptable.

there are patients who come in with very complicated health problems. silently, we often question why they are wasting their time in a creepy hospital room when they could have rested in the comfort of their homes and peacefully pass without the intrusions and invasions of medical hands all over their fragile bodies. yet, these very same dying patients, in some unbelievable twist of fate, miraculously get better and go home. they go home cured, without any kind of logical medical explanations. their healing would always be acceptable, but it doesn’t always make it medically explainable.

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the other night, i overtook the care of a middle aged Spanish speaking male patient. he started pretty well, meaning he was fairly healthy, generally speaking. he was primarily brought to the hospital for a dvt, and was only staying for another day to be cleared of a tuberculosis suspicion. at the end of the AM shift however, he started having mild chest pain on and off, and was occasionally short of breath. it prompted the doctors to order a few more tests, and caused the family to be very concerned.

when night shift began, he was getting more uncomfortable, and the family more concerned. after about two hours under the care of another nurse, who believed she did everything she can to attend to his and his worried family’s needs, the family demanded another nurse because they believed that their nurse “was extremely rude”.

within the first hour, it was determined that he might be having a pulmonary embolism. for three hours under my care, this patient required almost all of my time. i have done nursing stuff that would have taken care of four other patients in a 12 hour shift. it didn’t help that my other patient’s potassium dropped to 2.0, and her BP to 71/40, but i digress.

this guy needed all of my attention, and i gave it to him. i have gave him blood, reassured his family. bolused him with heparin, reassured his family. started heparin drip, reassured his family. bolused him liters of fluid, reassured his family. given him pain medicine, reassured his family. repositioned him, reassured his family. changed his linens, reassured his family. constantly monitored his vital signs, reassured his family. contacted the doctors countless numbers of times, reassured his family. etc. etc. etc, reassured his family.

finally, the arrangements for his transfer to icu were finalized. with another RN, we transported him. we decided to take the bigger elevator to accomodate his family who were understandably sick with worry. my stomach was turning in anxiety. i was holding on to the ambu bag and was anticipating coding him either in the elevator or just before the elevator door opened.

the freaky elevator took about 10 minutes to open! 10 minutes! that is a lifetime! the idea to go to the elevators in the other end of the building came up and was attempted, but was not pursued because it was not a good idea. this whole time, i can feel my heart racing, my adrenaline shooting up. i was beginning to get shaky in pessimistic fearful anticipation. not so much from fear of not being able to handle the whole situation properly, but the fear of not knowing how to console his family if his “time” did come in front, or inside that gigantic elevator.

the icu staff helped us transfer him to their bed. after losing all that energy, we went back to our unit, relieved. drained, but relieved. an hour later, we found out he coded! 5 minutes after we left the icu! the weary intern told us he was revived and was already in a ventilator when he left the icu. “by far, this is the craziest night of my life!”, the intern exclaimed, and told us how perfect our timing was.

was it really because our timing was perfect that he was still alive? was it really because he was in the hands of trained, intelligent professionals in the icu that he did not die? is that really it? or was it because it was not his time yet?

“to every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die…”

so said the supposed wisest man in the history of the world. what does that mean exactly? does it mean that medical intervention efforts done are pointless because we are powerless against an unknown destiny of death? would it even matter if we don’t pay attention to our health because even if we practice healthy living, when our time comes, it will come even to those who are perfectly healthy? or is this supposed wisdom just a load of nonsense, because we actually have a say in the when and how of our death? do researches that show that people are actually living longer now prove this ancient words wrong?

also, how about this whole idea of premonition? either of the dying person himself, or that of his family? do we, or someone we love really have that sense from nowhere that death is imminent? i still vividly remember my mom saying ” i’m just too tired and i just want to rest. i don’t want this (meaning dialysis, meds, tests) anymore”, an hour before she passed away. did she know her time was coming? did she mean rest as in “rest in peace”?

are these questions just a variation of the presence versus absence of God debates, and therefore impossible to figure out on both equally yet oppositely convinced parties? is there even a point in asking all these questions?

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when someone dies from a bizarre vehicular accident caused by a drunk driver, how do you accept this concept of “time”? you don’t. you don’t just accept something like that. it is very reasonable to blame the mindless drunk driver.

on the second thought, how was it that your loved one was at that exact spot, at that exact moment, when it could have been someone else? or when he could have been somewhere else? and why is it that there are people who have had far worse accident scenarios who come out literally without a scratch?

can medicine really claim credit when a patient’s life is prolonged or saved? can we really say we knew what to do and we did it well, thus preventing death? or can we really blame stupid or slow doctors and nurses, lack of modern technology, lousy lab technicians for losing a loved a one?

these thoughts maybe be totally senseless to others, but these ideas boggle my idle mind. it is never pleasant to contemplate about anything death related, but death is one of those things that won’t go away even if ignored. the gloomy weather seems to magnify gloomy thoughts, but that experience the other night just automatically refreshed these repressed questions.

am i all alone in thinking these thoughts?
do you ever pause and ask these kinds of questions?
if you do, what are YOUR thoughts?…