Funeral music

I’ve gotten pretty used to funeral music during my time here in Bach Mai. I hear it every morning as soon as I arrive for a days’ work. And when I don’t hear it, I feel like something’s missing.. The screeching horns and bagpipes have even started to sound like happy music! This was the first thing that caught me off guard when I first came to BM. The sheer number of funerals.. 3-4 every day. White cloaks and headbands, flower garlands and parades of family members line the walkways to say their final farewell.

The music reminds you of the number of deaths that occur each day in the hospital. I guess I never noticed it before in the States (or maybe the numbers are different, which could very well be the case), but a lot of people die every day! I won’t even begin to try to decipher my many theories on this less than scientific observation. For everyone’s sanity. I myself have seen more cardiac arrests in the ICU, Cardiology and ER departments during night shifts than I have so far in my short life. That still leaves a lot of other departments too. Patients are just coming to the hospital too late in the game. But I'll leave that for a separate anecdote..

And most of the funerals are happening elsewhere, not in the hospital. These are just the people that couldn’t make it home in time to die. Family members will ask to take the patient home when they feel it is time to let go, when the doctor says the prognosis is poor or before the doctor pulls the plug or stops compressions for good. In the culture, there is the superstition that it is unlucky to die outside of the home. As a result, patients are often transferred home in the middle of the night by rented van and nurse to keep the ambu bag pumping. If you die at home, your ghost will be able to find it’s way home. If you die hundreds of miles away in the hospital, how will your afterlife counterpart know where to go? Not a bad logical process.