Watching them burn out or fade away

I am generally assigned to the same hall. Once a week or so, I get bumped to another hall, so I don't see those resident's regularly.

Boy, you really notice changes when you only see them once a week.

Ms. X has been at the nursing center since before I started working there. She wasn't in good shape when I started, but she has been slowly declining until recently. Now she's taking a nose dive. Unfortunately, she knows it and is becoming more and more demanding. I used to be able to appease her 90% of the time (something I took pride in). If I can get her comfortable and happy for 50% of the time now, I'm doing better than average. She's going to burn out v/s fade away.

The resident that I wrote about being in the room when they passed, faded away. It was a quiet thing. Ms. X is going to be asking for everything she can think of until she can no longer speak. I had another resident go this way and I've been drawing parallels since last night.

Whether they burn out or fade away, it's still hard to watch them go.