White sheets

Only forty seven and she lays there with shaved head, puffy ecchymotic, closed eyes, yellow, pale skin, and agonal respirations.  Her family sits around and over her, some crying, some eager, some silent; they know its coming, but their disbelief is evident.  I stare at her as well, my own disbelief also surfacing.  Maybe its selfishness, or a basic human instinct to survive, but I subconsciously wish life on her.  Survive.  Fight.  She looks like a fighter.  She looks like she gave that cancer thief a run for his money.  But now she lays there dying.  Inevitable.  And I painfully break the silence as best as I could.  I speak softly and say little.

She will likely pass soon.  Let us know if she looks uncomfortable and we will give her more medications.

And soon thereafter I find myself beside her again, now with family and extended family waiting outside.  I pull back the sheets and find the PICC line in her right, swollen, edematous arm. It is not sutured in and I quickly remove the tape and pull it out.  I find the peripheral IV in the left arm and do the same.  Her arms are still limp, and the sensation of their weight and lifelessness as I pull at them is unsettling.  I pull back the sheets more and find her gastric tube still embedded in her stomach that is now tense and rigid.  I tug at the tube and it slowly complies.  Out comes the G-tube covered in fetid, fecal, decomposing matter.  The smell is pungent and sharp, instantly bringing a new alertness and disconcert.  I quickly dispose of the tubes and lines and cover her back up.  

The confusion and nauseating contrast sets in for a few brief moments as the live, breathing human and lifeless, odorous cadaver blur violently before me.  But I don't linger there.  I walk out and tell the waiting that I am done, that they can go back and continue saying their goodbyes.  I continue working, moving onto other patients.  But I realize soon thereafter, subconsciously, that this moment will burn itself permanently within me, like many other things, and that I would now carry this moment with me.