Let's Enlighten Our Endings

As a Scrub wearing RN with over 15 years in the Hospital Trenches, I've seen my fair share of Code Blues that have made me ask myself the question, "What Am I Doing Here?!?  The practice of performing CPR on the elderly as the default setting, regardless of their physical condition makes me wonder, "How did we get Here?!?  Or when a family has the "right" of revoking a DNR in order for a surgeon to perform a Life Resuscitating Surgery, how is this the "Right" thing to do?  This and many other components of our current medical model are why I feel the need to share my experiences with You and the World.

As Time moves forward and Modern Medicine continues to evolve, we continue to figure out new and innovative ways to keep a Pulse within a Body.  And unless We start having meaningful conversations about what we are actually trying to accomplish by using life prolonging technology, it will continue be used improperly on the terminal and elderly population because it sadly makes certain individuals rich...

And one of my problems with Resuscitation is that we've gotten so good at it!  We can bring severe dementia patients back to life like we be handing out green 1-up mushrooms or something.  Even though we avoid GameOver temporarily, we opened up a can of worms that created Nursing Homes full of agitated and medicated Zombies wondering around in Pillgatory... Which makes me ask myself, "Where do I want to End Up Dead!?!". 

Basic Physics teaches that the Universe is made up of 2 things, Energy and Matter.  Neither can be destroyed but both can be transformed.  If your body is made up of Matter and eventually returns to dust and transforms into different forms of Matter, what then happens to the electrical Energy that lives within everyones Heart once it becomes undetectable by modern machines?  It has to go somewhere, doesn't it?

So join me as I ramble for 15 minutes about my point of view on death from bedside while being sandwiched between an excerpt from the Flaming Lips track, "Do You Realize".  I Hope you Enjoy!!!

Chapters

• 0:51 Intro over
• 4:32 Broken Commercial
• 7:26 Broken Commercial Break Over
• 16:22 Outro

Transcript

We ALL NEED Enlightened Endings

Start by recording The Flaming Lips “Do you Realize?  That everyone, you know, someday, will die… and Endstead of saying all of your goodbyes, Let them KNOW You REALIZE that LIFE Goes FAST, It’s hard to make the GOOD things LAST, YOU Realize the Sun Doesn’t go down, It’s just an illusion caused by the World spinning round…

This is Isaac Benjamin bringing you another episode of Scrubs in the Trenches and on today's episode I want to do my best to tie everything together after sharing how my ICU eyes saw each of my Grandparents Endings in the previous 4 episodes…

It seems to me that the more advanced we get as a society the less willing we are to talk about death, EVEN though many of these advancements of modern medicine are being used to torture the Elderly shortly before their Death

And this is a problem for many of the nurses I know mainly because we keep figuring out ways to keep the body “Alive” with nothing but a pulse much longer than the Mind can maintain its natural habitat inside a Brain.  

And granted we do pass out Green 1-up Mushrooms that can give the elderly an extra life for a few hours, days, or even weeks.   But most of the time these individuals are ready for GAMEOVER and the fact that we snatch them from the jaws of Death makes it even harder for families to see that it is in fact GAMEOVER!   

And because its EASIER to resuscitate people with Dementia and low quality of life over and over than to have meaningful conversations and we can STOP DEATH BETTER THAN WE EVER HAVE BEFORE it lulls us into the false belief that our LOVED ONES are never going to DIE, but what are we actually doing HERE!!!  This is one of the reasons that so, so many people end up in nursing homes on dozens of pills, agitated and alone for months upon years. So Ask yourself… where do you want to end up dead? 

I Don’t claim to be a Pycisitstisis or a die hard believer in Physics, but I’m pretty sure that Basic Physics teaches that the Universe is made up of 2 things, Energy and Matter.  SO the only 2 realities provable by man can apparently neither be created or destroyed… Both can be transformed, and unless GOOGLE has rewritten that as well, neither can be destroyed.

I Believe that the Body is made up of Matter while YOUR LIFE/SPIRIT/SOUL is made up of ENERGY if it is made up of anything at all.  So while your Body will turn to dust and transform into other forms of Matter, your LIFE that ENERGY, that ELECTRICAL SPARK that LIVES within your HEART, it has to GO SOMEWHERE and transform into some other form of ENERGY according to basic Physics.  

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It's really hard  to understand what it feels like to break a 90 year olds ribs unless you’ve done it.  The crunch you feel and the sound you hear is something you’ll never forget.  It's probably my least favorite thing to do as a nurse.  And this comes from a guy who uh… has to, from time to time touch a penis in my line of work.  And isn’t weird that hospitals don’t have to include that in the application process under mandatory requirements, seems like something they should have to INCLUDE in the interview process!!!

It’s also tough for me when I see an old lady who was a DNR and comes out of anesthesia from a surgery that her family forced upon her, and only thing she can repeat over and over is Let me go! Let me go!!! she ain’t talking about letting her go to the dance… she talking about LET ME GO to the the other side…  She’s ready for this GAME to be OVER!

Or in the ICU with a man having a Bipap mask strapped to his face at the wishes of his super RELIGIOUS daughter.  Since he had COPD he made it clear that he didn’t want to die on a breathing tube but his daughter had enough legal power to make him be suffocated by a super tight mask 23 hours a day.   And every time you had a chance to take off to moisten his mouth, he would only yell Open the Door! Open the Door!!!  

At first, I was trying to open the ICU doors, wider and wider, and eventually like broke them open where the glass doors are sideways for when you have to move it big equipment like a Dialysis machine, but anyway, I open the doors as wide open as they go and REALIZE like oohhhhhh… [he’s talking about some DOOR I can’t SEE… yet]

So, unless you've been on my side of the curtain, you've probably never seen the things that I've seen. You've probably never dealt with a family member who blames you for killing their grandmother or grandfather…  

Someone at 90+ years can seem to be doing well, but one event can wipe out all defenses and then they get poked and prodded for weeks to months and sometimes even years in Nursing Homes that take long term trache and PEG patients until their bodies just can’t take it anymore.  CPR and a lot of these other LIFE SAVING measures were never intended for the dying but it’s used on the dying all the time, WHY?!?  

One of my theories is pretty simple and it’s really no more than it’s making money for certain people, I call them the Curtain People, You know the ultra wealthy trying to Keep us ALL HEALTHY…. But I digress, let’s get back to WHY ARE we using EXTREME MEASURES on people right before Death?

And No One actually knows what happens after Death no matter how passionately they may claim that they do.  Even me, who, from what I've been told, technically died from drowning at age 2.  So Even though I feel like I have some sort of insight or understanding from the experience, I am able to accept that it may actually just be permanent anoxic brain damage that makes me feel this way.

But anyway, I believe that We as a Species have Never really come to grips with Death because No One REALLY KNOWS what happens after We take our Final Breathe.  And the easiest thing to naturally do with our human nature is to FEAR what WE DO NOT UNDERSTAND.  But this FEAR, like ALL FEAR, is useless.  It does not serve US or our LOVED ONES and it does not stop DEATH from coming, no matter what you may or may not believe about DEATH.

Death used to be something they came rapidly for anyone at anytime before modern medicine, whether you were 1 or 100, but now we are actively striving to stave off death and it’s our elderly loved ones on the front lines…  heading to the land of Pillgatory to fight an unwinnable battle… 

And I get it the finality of death feels so real. But most people I know believe in some sort of after life and unless you have discussions about it with your loved ones, this point in Time and Space will chew you up and spit you out if you’re not prepared for the transition into the AFTERLIFE.  I don’t know anyone who would want to have their own life prolonged by pacemakers and feeding tubes if they couldn’t interact with their loved ones but I see people do that exact thing to their Momma with SEVERE Dementia because the necessary conversations didn’t take place before it was too late.  

I know I expressed my distaste for 2 of my grandparents ending up in Pillgatory but I do feel very blessed that none of them had to have CPR or be terminally extubated.  Grandma was the closest and furthest from this from this sort of ending almost paradoxically.  She was intubated, resuscitated, able to clearly discuss her wishes, and allowed to go to her home surrounded by family and loved ones.  She had a say in her ending and it was beautiful.  

So Death is a necessary part of life and anything that is allowed to grow on forever eventually destroyed itself and everything that surrounds it….  I know it's not easy and that's why I want to help anyone willing to have deep conversations to find out exactly how you want to exit this world.  It's your story, how do you want to end it?

So If you haven't listened to any of the previous episodes, I'd love to invite you to hear the stories of each of my grandparents endings and how it looked through the eyes of an ICU nurse. I really want to use my experiences to shine a light on topics that won’t be covered anywhere else the way I cover them.

Alright, since I just got myself a few more measly sleezily dollars I’m good for a few more weeks so

be on the lookout every Wednesday for new Scrubs in the Trenches Content and if you like the show please Subscribe, give it a Like, or leave a Review.  That would mean a lot to me and I appreciate all the encouragement and feedback I’ve received so far. Bye yah

End with Do you Realize outré