Special Sunday Missives

• At different times there were 4-6 teenage boys in my house this weekend.
• Eating machines.
• I've slept 16 of the past 24 hours.
• Feel great.
• I think I worked 8 straight 12 hour night shifts and started another but, the patient died before it was over.
• I was counting his respiration's and he just stopped breathing. Some of the family was bothered by the fact they weren't at the bedside but, this situation shows how you can't be there all the time- I mean he just stopped being.
• His daughter was asleep on a couch in the same room and woke up while I was listening for his heart and lung sounds with my stethoscope. She looked up and smiled the sweetest smile at me and drifted back off to sleep.
• I get very close to my patients and their families and get included in meal plans, family meetings etc. but, I've never attended a patients funeral although I have when I worked in long term care. I don't know how to put it in words but, it would seem wrong. Maybe it's because you have become so close as an outsider at such an intense time at what is normally such a private event.
• Modern embalming has its roots in the US Civil War. A. Lincoln issued an order for a system to be developed so Union soldiers bodies could make it back north to their families.
• It cost 100 dollars per body.
• As a profession, I think funeral directors are among the genuinely kindest group of people I've ever met.