Bienvenidos!

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Mr B

Today was a bad day.

Mr B had Merkel Cell Carcinoma. It's not a good thing to have. He came in a month ago for a bone scan and it was found to have spread. The tumours compressed his spinal cord and he lost the ability to walk. This lovely proud man who only recently had been working as a butcher in his butchers shop was bedbound and completely dependent. He went to the local cancer centre for radiotherapy to stop the tumour in his spine getting any worse and then came back to us nearly two weeks ago. He wanted to go home, so we were trying to get the equipment set up at his house so his family could care for him. We got the palliative care team involved, and he was supposed to be going over to them until his home was ready. Yesterday I was talking to him about his butchers shop while I took blood cultures. He had a bit of a temperature and a cough. He thanked me for listening, thanked me for my time. "See you later Mr B."

Today the Reg and I saw him on the ward round. His oxygen saturations were a bit lower than yesterday so we asked that he have some supplementary oxygen. He talked to us, he was not in pain. The nurses set up humidified oxygen to stop his mouth drying out with the mask. The last time I saw him alive he was saying he didn't like the humidified oxygen; it felt like it was choking him. He looked a little flustered but still well and alert. Then I left the ward for the lunchtime meeting. I went to the mortuary to write a death certificate for a lady who had leukaemia who died the day before. I came back to the ward only about an hour and a half after I'd left to be told that Mr B had suddenly passed away. The nurses had put the regular oxygen back on him, the palliative care nurse came up to see him and he didn't look very well. Another nurse called his wife. When they went back in the room, he was gone.

I went in to verify the death and started to cry. I keep getting choked up now. I just can't believe I was talking to him only a couple of hours before he died. I certainly won't forget him.

See you later Mr B.

8:50 p.m. - 2008-12-02

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