Bittersweet Russian Symphony

I’ve missed my bus home after my nursing shift tonight, but to be honest I don’t care. Nursing is such an emotional rollercoaster and today has got to have been the best and worst day in my nursing career to date.

A resident in my care died.

I hope that I was able to help to make her passing into a peaceful journey. It was an expected death. We had been expecting her to die for a couple of weeks but it still doesn’t make it easy when it happens. Her family were there, all crowded round her bedside and her poor husband looked so broken. I think it was the sight of them all crying over her that made me take charge, as I really felt like I needed to look after each and every one of them too.

Two weeks ago I had been working the afternoon shift when Mrs S had what the care staff called a ‘funny turn’. It turned out that she had had a huge stroke, so we tucked her up into bed and one of the girls stayed with her to stop her feeling so frightened. She had already said that she didn’t ever want to go to the hospital, so I called the GP and he came out to see her. He was a nice guy, but so matter of fact. He told me that this was the beginning of the end and that the family should be told. I was hoping that he would hang around to help me with that minor task but he had a surgery full of pregnant women to get back to so I was on my own.

That was hard. Explaining to Mr S that the love of his life for the last 60 years was soon to slip away was heart-breaking and I don’t know who cried more, me or him. I spent almost an hour with him as we talked about their younger days and the adventures they had had together.

Palliative care had become a necessity now and I gently got him onto the subject of her last few days and how we could try to make it as peaceful and special as possible. I explained that the doctor had prescribed a variety of medication that would help her to be pain free and as comfortable as possible.

There were also drugs to make sure she maintained her dignity and stuff to help her with her anxiety if she felt frightened at the end. Mr S seemed relieved at that, especially when I said that the girls and I would make sure she was comfortable and that someone went in to sit with her regularly, although as much as I wished I could, I couldn’t guarantee it would be round the clock.

The saddest thing about that last two weeks was that we learnt more about Mrs S then than we had ever learnt – and she had been living at the home for two years. She was a ballerina in her younger days and had lived in Communist Russia. She had fallen in love with Mr S as a teenager and they had run away together to England to escape the Communist regime. They went on to have four beautiful children but hadn’t dared visit Russia again, so they had only had each other for family.

It really made me question the reality of person centred care and whether it truly exists, or whether we only ever pay it lip service until it’s too late.

Today Mrs S took a turn for the worse. Her breathing became more laboured at tea time and she became less responsive.

Occasionally she grimaced as if she was in pain, so I spoke to the doctor who told me to administer the analgesia. It was shortly after that when Mr S seemed just to know that she needed him. He climbed onto the bed and placed her head in his lap. He stroked her brow and whispered secret words into her ear. I don’t know what he said but he said it in Russian and all four of their children cried silent tears while they held each other close.

It was weird really as I felt part of that family but such an outsider too. When Mrs S took her final breath, I realised that I’d played a huge part in making her death as good as her life. Russian ballet music played softly in the background and she left this life in the arms of the man she loved.

It couldn’t get better than that.

Like I said, the best day and the worst day…bittersweet I think they call it.

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