20.5.09

Raise their souls up to the sky/Why must helpless creatures die?

There was another death at work. This one on Thursday night/Friday morning, my shift. Since I can't call him his real name, we'll call him Gerald. He just...died, in the middle of the night. My coworker, Natasha, found him first and screamed for me and I saw it and called 911 and the boss and the nurses and everything else is a fog. For several reasons. Reason number one: that apartment was my responsibility to check every hour. Room one, check that she's not on her stomach and that her body pillow is in the right place; Room two, that he hasn't wet himself; Room 3 that he hasn't fallen out of bed; and Room 4 to drain the catheter bag and rotate him to prevent bedsores. Gerald was in room 3. So all night I peeked in, ok, he's still on the bed, good. That was all. That's all bed checks are. He hadn't been sick or degrading medically so breathing checks weren't necessary. He'd been dead for four hours when we found him. After my spurt of efficiency. I sat down and just...left. My mind went totally blank. People are still wondering if I'm ok and I think they were rather worried about it; looking back, I wasn't too far from having to be taken to the hospital myself for shock.

the funeral was yesterday.


I feel horrible about this. I just...yeah.