Persistance Pays Off

  The next week the Col. kept trying to convince me that the best thing to do was to end his life. He was not about to commit suicide, his plan involved me putting an end to his pain. He had made peace and he was ready. The problem was that I was not. I went to my boss and told her that she was right, that I was too emotionally involved with my patient. The same argument that she gave me a month ago I was now giving her. The colonel had already gotten to my boss and told her that he would not allow another tech to attend to him. He had built a bond with me and that was final. The colonel outranked my boss and even though he was retired the chain of command was still strong. I'm not even 20 and she decides that I could handle his death, emotionally. The truth was she did not want to deny a full bird colonel his wishes, without regard to how I would deal with his death. As I stated before, the colonel was a shrewed and manipulative man. I did not have a chance. I would lay in bed at night wondering how I would handle taking the life of someone I had grown to love and respect. The actual killing him would be easy. The aftermath of that act is what worried me. I could not convince the colonel to let nature take its course. He was, indeed, in a tremendous amount of pain. It was hard seeing him, day after day, losing the light in his blue eyes. My love for him won out. I could not stand to see him suffer everyday. I had to work nights from 11pm to 7am. I came into work and told him that I would do it. Against everything I believed, He had won. All he said when I told him was "when." Not thank you, no emotion, just when will I do it. I had worked 6 nights in a row with one more to go and I would be off 4 days in a row. I told him that I would do it tomorrow night towards the end of my shift. That would give me time to steal the meds I needed to do the job. It would also give him a full day to spend with Bunny. It would be the last day he spent with a woman that he had been married to for fifty years. I stopped by his room the morning before "The" day and told him I would see him that night. I also hugged Bunny and told her to have a good day with him. I almost broke down because I knew that this time tomorrow her life would be turned upside down. It would be all because of me.  theblogmeister