Bad News

Magda just left the flat to go to work. Few minutes later while I also prepared to leave, Magda came back again. I had an unease feeling, and found out her father passed away in the early morning. When she returned her mum call on her way to work, her mum was very upset at the other end of world, South Africa.



Magda's parents, her nephew and niece, this photo was quite blurr because I took it from the wall.

I knew her mum, Mrs Hertzog, she came to London few years ago. I never meet her dad, Magda loves her dad very much, sometimes when she talked about her family, there were always some funny stories about her dad, Magda and her family are going to miss her dad very much. Luckily Magda managed to get a flight back to SA, everyone needs to stay together when some bad news happen, so family members can comfort each other. I paid my condolance to Magda and her family for their lost, the respectful loved one, husband, dad and grandfather.

In retrospect the day my father passed away 11 years ago, I was in Germany for holiday. My sister and brother tried to call me day and night, I received several notes on my nurse's flat floor when I arrived back. At that time the mobile phone was very expensive and email via internet was not that popular, so I received the news after my father's funeral. I flew back home and stayed for 2 months.

On the same day Magda's dad passed away, I looked after a very sick patient, and the consultant wanted to break a bad news to the family members. I cared her the last two days, so I chose to go back to look after her and her family members when the Dr break the news.

The patient was only 47 years old who was diagnosed with breast cancer last year, and had a surgery early this year followed by chemotheraphy and radiotherapy. After all the treatments there was no signs of recurrent breast cancer. But when she felt unwell recently and admitted to the hospital, was diagnosed with respiratory failure caused by pneumonia. But after more than 10 days in ICU, she was deteriorated everyday, O2 and machanical ventilation requirement increase, so the lung biopsy was performed. The result was vey bad, the cancer cells were spread in her lungs.

The patient only had her son, daughter-in-law, granddaughter and her sister in London, the rest of the family were in Poland. After the Drs told them the bad news, they were very upset and cried their eyes out. I had to walk away and hide myself in the toilet for few minutes. The patient died on the same day after all the treatment were withdrawn slowly. I stayed with the family member until the patient passed away, she looked so peaceful and no sign of pain. This was a very...........sad ending !!!!

I also encoutered a horror death patient. The patient had a cardiac arrest outside the hospital, also had severe liver damaged due to alcohol abuse and surprisely he was a Muslim ?????? I looked after the patient next to this patient, when he passed away, I helped my colleague to clean him. His look-alike tree legs, were a shocking effect to all the people who nursed him, his feet nearly fell off, we had to lift his feet very careful to avoid any part of his feet got missing, and from the nipple down his skins were broke down after the big blisters popped off one by one, body fluids all over the body, it was so horrible, I never saw/dealed with this before, this was the first time and hopefully the last as well. Pity the young nurse, she was so upset, and she could not stop crying when cleaning the body. We had put him into two body bag instead of one to prevent any fluid leak out. The patient was old and the sad thing was he did not have any next of kin (family members) to accompany him for his last breath in this world.

So, my friend enjoy while you can, do not wait till retire or children grow up to plan your trip/travel, do it now if you can affort, our future is so unpredictable. Smile and laugh often is the best medicine for every illness.