by Serena St. John

Created on: May 11, 2008

My First Dead Body

I selected nursing as a career, I chose to work as a nurse's aide while attending school, I made a commitment to be good at what I did, and I was eager to learn everything I could whenever I could. Anxiety would flood my body with every new experience, but it never prevented me from volunteering for the next procedure that would expand my nursing service. Being a good nurse and being fearful could not exist side-by-side. My motto developed early on: "never let "em see you sweat".

In reality, I was so nervous my head would bobble in a way I felt could be detected by anyone looking at me, my eye would twitch in a nervous tic, my vision would blur vision, and dizziness caused waves in my head like I had just disembarked from a dare-devil amusement park ride.

And so it was me who volunteered to sit with Axle Lindstrom the night his death became imminent. The nurse in charge had a personal philosophy that if at all possible, no on should transition from this earth into the next life alone. "Someone should be there when he is received into the light" she told us. There was no show of hands when she asked who would sit with him. No one really wanted to be there when his spirit passed from his physical body into the hereafter. His family was not living in the area so that was not a possibility. And that was how I came to volunteer.

It astounded me how very calm and peaceful he looked. I thought about his life and what he was like as a young man my age some 70 plus years ago. One moment his chest was rising and falling evenly and the next moment it wasn't. He had been "Cheyne-Stokes" breathing I would later learn. At age 19 it looked to me like he was holding his breath every few respirations. But his breathing changes were all part of his passing. I sat watching his chest rise and fall for 45 seconds, stop for a full minute, rise and fall for 30 seconds, stop for 90 seconds, resume, until his chest rose with a finality and fell with what would be has last breath. After 5 minutes of staring at his chest and the second hand on my watch, I accepted that his chest was not going to rise anymore. With a prayer I left the room.

After the right people were notified and the proper procedures followed regarding pronouncement of death by the physician, I once again volunteered to help prepare the body for the mortician. I was not prepared for my response when I returned to the room where Axle's body lie. It took several minutes to gather the courage to approach

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