In Their Shoes
The passings with a bed full of family and an alert, fighting patient are the hard ones. The hardest one, emotionally, I’ve been graced to be a part of was a 50ish-year-old man with very bad pulmonary fibrosis. He had a “Do Not Intubate” order, so we weren’t supposed to ventilate him. It’s near impossible to ventilate with severe pulmonary fibrosis anyway, and the patient was well educated on his sickness and the severity of it.
The kids were all in their mid-20s, so around my age at the time. They were begging me and the doctor to do more, all while their dad basically suffocated without a ventilator. The dad was alert, showering his kids with love and calmness, and it was hard not to put myself in their shoes. Same age as me, and he was the same age as my dad.
This stuff sticks with you. Emotionally, that is a top three for me.
Story credit: Reddit / KingDaBearz