Nick was 25 when he died. I was 21. He was on the transplant list for a double lung transplant. Growing up, he was always sick and I asked why he always needed pills but never understood the answers I got from my parents. I loved Nick. He was full of life, full of love, had a smartass answer for everything and drove me crazy in ways only an older brother could. I wondered why he was sick when when I was older, I could finally understand why.
We all knew what was coming. The mortality rate for CF is 100%. To me, as a morbid young adult, the mortality rate for LIFE was 100% so why should we worry? I visited Nick in the hospital, saw him to go Dr visits and continued to think he'd be fine but I also saw his contidion get worse. I saw permanent IV ports being inserted, Saw more breathing meds and finally, saw him carry around an oxygen tank as a last resort to bring more oxygen to his starving lungs. I saw him leave to get a double lung transplant but also saw him come back later the same day because the donor had asbestos in his lungs or whatever the reason was.
The day did come and as I read Winne the Pooh to him as he lay in a coma in the ICU, we were all in a bit of shock. How could somebody so full of vitality, so full of a love for life ACTUALLY succumb to CF?
As a result, I saw hospitals as a place where people died. Or, where death was only prolonged. It was shooed away as long as we could scare it, only for it to return and take our family away, one by one.
Flawed thinking, I know but it's something that I fully believed in. With my limited life experience, why should I think any different? Becky, Michael, Nick, Grandpa had all gone into the hospital to die.
At 21, I guess that's all I knew.
I was in and out of the hospital myself and it was the most frustrating thing I have ever experienced. I had a bad gallbladder but everytime we looked on ultrasound, the stones would be gone and the Drs would scratch their heads, wondering what the source of my extreme pain was. I ended up in hospital every 2nd night, for months and no answers. Only a shot of morphine and the advice to come back if the pain returned. It did end up being my gallbladder and after hundreds of tests, shots of morphine and demerol an even a week long hospital stay with pancreatitis did one of those pesky stones show itself. Frustrating, to say the VERY least.
I've always believed that children will change your life... but I always believed that children will change your personal life, not your beliefs. Boy was I wrong.
I had two babies. One in 2008 and another in 2011. Two boys and they actually showed me that hospitals are yes, where you go to die... that sometimes happens. They taught me that hospitals are where sometimes sick people go to get BETTER... sometimes, people go into the ICU (Ev had a frustrating stay in the ICU after birth where yes, they even tested him for CF) and they come out better than when they went in. Sometimes, people go into the hospital to create new LIFE.
LIFE.... families are formed in hospitals. Nurses and Drs come into hospital rooms to deliver GOOD news... sometimes, medications are given but not always are they to treat bad pain or sedate to ease the end of life.
I also learned that some pain is GOOD.... and with that knowledge I learned that to become a nurse is to spread this good realization to the world. To see families at their worst and sometimes at their best. I learned that with a lot of hard work. I can make an impact on the quality of a family or person's stay.
It's my duty.
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