She has passed.

Today when I went to work a note on the white board stated that the patient that started my urge to blog, passed away. For a reminder go here: The Beginning .

I wasn't in work at the time but I spoke with someone who was and she said that she was admitted late a few nights ago, a transfer from a different hospital, and when she arrived the nurse could tell she was close to dying. She could barely breathe and was working very hard to do so. The nurse welcomed her and said that she was glad she came here because this was her home away from home, and we were glad to be with her. (And as the nurse told me this I saw tears begin to form). The nurse knew that at the end of her shift the patient would not be alive when she came back.

The patient refused for a long time to sign a form that said "Do not Resusitate" and near the end of her life she became non responsive, and so the family was in charge of making her decisions. The form was signed 10 minutes before she passed away.

The patient's family filled the halls. I was told 80 people were there, crying and supporting each other. And they would not leave the hospital. They were in denial up until that moment and could not face the reality of her passing.

I asked the reason why the patient came in to the hospital at all and the nurse said "she got scared."

I think I would be too. When you can feel the end approaching, and you realize that it's over. The pain has won.

But I wish she could have been in the comfort of her own home. Where nurses and doctors don't ask the family to leave so they can care for the body. Where she could be surrounded by everything and everyone that loves her.

And yet I wonder if she needed to say goodbye to us. The unit that cared for her through most of her hospitalization. The people who understood that she was dying, because her family didn't believe it.