Death

I don't have cable for my television at home. If I watch tv it's while I'm at work and getting some time between calls to sit down and watch it. What exactly does this have to do about death? I'm getting there just hold on a few minutes.
Today's television shows have gone down hill a bit there's so many reality shows it's mind boggling. Shows from what people's work day is like, how their family is famous and screwed up so everybody wants to watch, to let's see what we can force people to do in order to win some money. There are a couple shows though that make me laugh because no matter what the title is or how they try to change it they are all about one thing: ghosts and death.
Now I've watched a few of these shows that go around to various places to try and catch some proof. They believe that sometimes after we die our spirit or soul or whatever plasmid substance we have stays around in order to either terrify the living or try to get their last thoughts out. Or as some of the shows think that they are stuck in a constant loop in some point of the living person's life. These types of shows bring up an interesting thought, that humans are obsessed over death. Yes I know this isn't a new theory or thought but now it's my turn to weigh in.
As a Paramedic I've seen my fair share of death. Mostly the death I see are when the elderly finally die and their family has found them or witnessed it. I have seen some younger people die some at their own hand others because wrong place wrong time. Death is a part of life, we all have a beginning middle and end and the end doesn't always have to be so bad.
In the medical field there's a small piece of paper that some of our patients carry that is the most amazing thing in the world. It's called a DNR or Do Not Resusate order. With this piece of paper patients can have some control and dignity over their death. This piece of paper is used when a person dies. They have to be of sound mind in order to sign it, or a family member that has legal control to make medical decisions may sign as well. These orders give us the instructions the dying person wants followed. They can tell us that in the event of their death they do not want us to try and to revive them with CPR or any other measures, that they want comfort measures only. This means they are kept as warm and comfortable as possible, that we can give them oxygen in order to keep them comfortable. There are no heroics in order to try and save them. Or the person can specify that they want us to try and save them, but they do not want a breathing tube placed in their airway and put on a ventilator, or that they do not want medications given, or to be kept alive if there is no brain function.
When I say that this piece of paper is amazing it's not because it means we don't have to less work it's because it's easier on my patients. Performing CPR on a person is traumatic to their body if a person is doing CPR correctly they will break ribs. The ribs must be broken away from the sternum (breast bone) so that it can be pushed down in order to cause the heart to push blood through the body. We have to stick people with needles in order to give them medication to try and restart the heart, we bounce them around in a speeding moving ambulance. It's hard on the body, this doesn't mean it doesn't always work and can truly save a life. Sometimes it restores body function but the brain is always dead, and if there's no quality to your life there's no real living.
Death can be an honorable and peaceful process. I'm not talking about the murders and all the horrible ways of dieing, I'm talking about dieing in your sleep, dieing when you're older and know it will happen sometime in the future. Unfortunately just because our patients want the DNR sometimes family members do not. This causes problems for us EMS folks.
The problem this causes is unfortunately simple, in order for us to honor a DNR it must be present. If we do not have a copy in our hands that we can look at we cannot honor it. I have had family members tell me several times that our patients have an DNR but they cannot find it. In some cases this is true, the paperwork has gone missing. In others not so much. I have had family members tear up the DNR as our patient goes into cardiac arrest forcing our hand into running the code (CPR in progress). I understand that they are grieving and not ready for their family member to die, I get that. I've lost family members and I've lost family members that were on hospice.
In this job I have to admit for the most part I do not feel bad for the person that has died. They are no longer in pain, they no longer suffer with the problems of aging and with the inability to live life how they want to. As my granddad used to say "The golden years just aren't that golden." The sympathy I feel is for the family and loved ones that are left behind. They are the ones that must feel the pain of the lost loved one, they are the ones left behind. There have been times I've stayed after a loved one was pronounced dead at a hospital in order to speak with the family and give my condolences. It's hard on the EMS people as well. It's hard doing everything you can to know that most likely it's not going to do any good. It wears you out some days.
Death comes to us all. We can't control it and we can't stop it. Just try to make what time we have worth while it's not that quantity that counts it's the quality.