In
my third blog post I talked about my first patient encounter in the burns unit—the
patient who had been burned on 86% of his body.
Since that time, he was making a miraculous recovery. Two weeks after the operation he made it out
of the ICU and was moved to the burns unit.
He started making progress and started to communicate—he started to yell
in pain when the three doctors, two nurses, and myself changed his dressing
every day to prevent infections. The
worst part (for him and myself) was when we pulled off the last layer of
dressing—that was when he really shrieked.
After we would change his dressings, I would try my best to make sure
that his back was rubbed because he was always itching. I would feel terrible leaving him for the day
but would always tell him in Xhosa, “I’m right here for you, see you tomorrow.”
One
Monday morning, I walked in and he was trying to tell me “I missed you this
weekend,” (in Xhosa). That struck a chord
in me. For the rest of the week he would
call me, by yelling Bhuti (the Xhosa word for brother), whenever I passed by
his room or when he was in pain during his dressing changes. He became my pride and joy when I went to
work everyday, always making sure that every one of his needs, which were
immune to language barriers, were taken care of.
The
next week during his physiotherapy and occupational therapy session I asked the
physio how long it would be until he started walking. She said, “Hmmm…probably four weeks.” Four minutes
later I turned around and he was dancing, shaking his hips and he walked all
the way to the dressing changing room.
I’ve never been this close to balling in joy in my life. I knew that he was going to be a champion, a
survivor. The next day we took him out
for a stroll in a wheel chair. That was
the first time he’s seen grass or Table Mountain in over two months. During our stroll we played music for him and
bought him a Coca-Cola which he inhaled and I could hear his happy little burps
of satisfaction. He dreaded having to go
back inside and wanted to be put in a chair—he didn’t want anything to do with
the bed.
Over
the last two, we cheered for him as he fought off infection after
infection. But last Monday we knew
something was wrong. His entire eye was
glassy (and would not be able to see for the rest of his life)—he had a
systemic infection that would not work with any anti-biotic. When I left on
Wednesday for the weekend, I said a quick goodbye to him—not expecting to never
see him again—and that I’d see him on Monday…but he looked sick…he wasn’t even
complaining. Early Friday morning he
passed away after two cardiac arrest resuscitations. I’m happy I was not there for that. I found out Friday at 5 pm as I was leaving
to Friday night services and ran into Prof Rode leaving the hospital.
I am
grateful for finding out before I came into work on Monday and for being able
to cope with his death during the prayers I said for him. I kept thinking back on what could have been
done better or if we did anything to prevent this last infection from killing
him. After having a good cry, I think I
got over it—mostly. I think bringing him
outside was the best thing for him—he at least was able to die in dignity and
kept in a box for his last two months. I
will always remember him as the champion boy—the one who fought against all
odds (dead family, the multiple surgeries, the multiple infections he fought
off, etc)—and as the first (long term) patient of mine who died.
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