Thursday, November 17, 2005
When You Thought You're Retiring for The Day
Never have I smelt so much anger, frustration and sweat in that one hour we worked on the 15 year old girl. She was just 15. She had so much to live for.
My bleep went off at 05:50 and it was not the normal cardiac arrest call. The bleeped actually shrieked my name to go to Accident and Emergency at lightning speed. When I got there it was like a scene out of ER. The skinny blonde nurse with blue mascara was doing the cardiac massage and the paramedic was at the head end. According to him, it was his third attempt at putting the tube and he’s just about to give up.
One look and my heart sank. The girl had that ashen mottled colour. Almost blue. The colour of death. We did a cycle with just a mask over her face. The Medical Guy whom I’ve only just said ‘Hope not to see you again tonight’ an hour before, at another cardiac arrest, gave me that we’ve-been-jinxed look. He tried a subclavian line ( bloody good at trying as well if I may say). Almost black blood trickled out instantly, driven by no pressure whatsoever.
I pushed my luck at my end. The mouth and jaw were rigid. No way I thought I could shove anything down. How could I when I could only see the base of the tongue. Broke into cold sweat, my left hand was shaking, resisting fate. With one deep breath I thought why not and shove down the bent bougie and pushed the tube in. On one squeeze, hard squeeze, the chest moved a fraction, and I felt warm and giddy. It was in. But on the recoil her presumably dinner, gushed out from the lung, through the tube filling up the AMBU bag. Fate had decided that whatever she had for dinner, wouldn’t end up where it should and now her lungs were filled up with it.
One cycle, two cycles, three and four, I lost count. Everybody was high, hopeful. Empty ampoules and syringes scattered on the floor. It was like a battle field, only there was no blood. Only vomitus. She was a body full of adrenaline and atropine. The colour never returned, her pupils never reacted, her body, remained like a log. Yet the scene was a sheer vessel of panic, catecholamines, action and tears.
Somehow I caught the glimpse of the dad. In the far corner, body shaking uncontrollably, his face flushed and full of hope. I then realized I had been shaking my head non stop, while handling the tube earlier. I really didn’t mean to do so. I wish I wasn’t that transparent. Body language I believe is always the true language spoken by the human race. But why should I lie? Why should I feel bad about my body language?
06:45. We called it off. Some of the nurses started to become emotional. There was nothing else we could do. One could argue that, maybe we shouldn’t have done anything on arrival, because she was already in rigor mortis. But she was 15, and the dad was watching. Justified? I don’t know. I knew everybody knew we were just working on the idea of miracle at that point.
What caused her to vomit in her sleep (which probably caused her to stop breathing) remained a mystery. Post mortem will give us a clue, but the fact that we are not always given the clue when our number is up always leaves me with a cloud of edginess, which will last a while.
I am not your mum, and I don’t support WeightWatchers UK, but whatever you do, don’t sleep with stomach gurgling and bursting at it's full capacity. It's not clever.
My bleep went off at 05:50 and it was not the normal cardiac arrest call. The bleeped actually shrieked my name to go to Accident and Emergency at lightning speed. When I got there it was like a scene out of ER. The skinny blonde nurse with blue mascara was doing the cardiac massage and the paramedic was at the head end. According to him, it was his third attempt at putting the tube and he’s just about to give up.
One look and my heart sank. The girl had that ashen mottled colour. Almost blue. The colour of death. We did a cycle with just a mask over her face. The Medical Guy whom I’ve only just said ‘Hope not to see you again tonight’ an hour before, at another cardiac arrest, gave me that we’ve-been-jinxed look. He tried a subclavian line ( bloody good at trying as well if I may say). Almost black blood trickled out instantly, driven by no pressure whatsoever.
I pushed my luck at my end. The mouth and jaw were rigid. No way I thought I could shove anything down. How could I when I could only see the base of the tongue. Broke into cold sweat, my left hand was shaking, resisting fate. With one deep breath I thought why not and shove down the bent bougie and pushed the tube in. On one squeeze, hard squeeze, the chest moved a fraction, and I felt warm and giddy. It was in. But on the recoil her presumably dinner, gushed out from the lung, through the tube filling up the AMBU bag. Fate had decided that whatever she had for dinner, wouldn’t end up where it should and now her lungs were filled up with it.
One cycle, two cycles, three and four, I lost count. Everybody was high, hopeful. Empty ampoules and syringes scattered on the floor. It was like a battle field, only there was no blood. Only vomitus. She was a body full of adrenaline and atropine. The colour never returned, her pupils never reacted, her body, remained like a log. Yet the scene was a sheer vessel of panic, catecholamines, action and tears.
Somehow I caught the glimpse of the dad. In the far corner, body shaking uncontrollably, his face flushed and full of hope. I then realized I had been shaking my head non stop, while handling the tube earlier. I really didn’t mean to do so. I wish I wasn’t that transparent. Body language I believe is always the true language spoken by the human race. But why should I lie? Why should I feel bad about my body language?
06:45. We called it off. Some of the nurses started to become emotional. There was nothing else we could do. One could argue that, maybe we shouldn’t have done anything on arrival, because she was already in rigor mortis. But she was 15, and the dad was watching. Justified? I don’t know. I knew everybody knew we were just working on the idea of miracle at that point.
What caused her to vomit in her sleep (which probably caused her to stop breathing) remained a mystery. Post mortem will give us a clue, but the fact that we are not always given the clue when our number is up always leaves me with a cloud of edginess, which will last a while.
I am not your mum, and I don’t support WeightWatchers UK, but whatever you do, don’t sleep with stomach gurgling and bursting at it's full capacity. It's not clever.
