The Shift: One Nurse, Twelve Hours, Four Patients' Lives

by Theresa Brown

To picture what happens during the late stages of sepsis, imagine a garden hose with small holes placed throughout to turn it into a sprinkler. When a normal amount of water goes through the hose, the sprinkling effect is constant. If the flow decreases, the sprinkler effect becomes more erratic, and if the volume of water in the hose lessens even further, the sprinkler will turn into a leaky mess that waters only the strip of garden it rests on.