43 Minutes
Everyone knows that feeling of not being able to sleep the night before a big event, like how kids don’t sleep on Christmas Eve because they know there are presents waiting for them the next morning. The universe doesn’t always give you a reason for it. Sometimes you don’t get to know why. You have to toss and turn all night, thinking you’re going to get no sleep for a seemingly normal day. It doesn’t always present itself until that thing comes and slaps you right in the face. Monday, November 5th of 2018 was a night like that, but I didn’t have anything but working in the emergency room the next morning to look forward to. The next day was nothing special but business as usual, or so I thought. By 4 am, I knew there was no hope of real sleep, so I decided to just get up and get ready for the day. I did the usual, brush my teeth, put just enough makeup on to look mildly presentable, put on my royal blue scrubs, tie my white tennis shoes that weren’t so white anymore, clip on my name tag, and finally get into the car to struggle to find a spot in the small hospital parking lot. Half way to the hospital, my body finally communicated to my brain how cold it really was outside as I noticed the leftover snow banks from the last snowfall. At a stop light, I rummaged around the back seat of my car to find one of the many coats living in my car and bundled up. After squeezing between two lifted and beat up trucks, I looked at my banged up, cheap, black and gold watch: 5:34 am, one hour and twenty-six minutes early. I decide to waste a little time by getting a coffee at the hospital coffee shop. While I stumble out of my car and across the rocky, pothole filled parking lot, I see an ambulance coming down the street in front of the hospital, sirens blaring louder than anyone wants to hear at 5:34 in the morning. That noise and the realization of what is actually going on woke me up faster than any cup of coffee ever could. My brain immediately goes into speed mode and my feet followed, hauling me right through the front doors of the emergency department and to the nurses’ station. Before I could even get close enough to say good morning to the charge nurse, she looks at me and yells, “Incoming trauma! Get your coat off, gown up and get ready!”. Well good morning to you too, Nancy. I followed her instructions without question and stripped off my coat and replaced it with a canary yellow isolation gown and purple latex gloves. The head doctor gathered everyone and assigned us a job, which is standard procedure for traumas. This helps reduce confusion and increase the speed in which we can treat. Since I am just a nurse assistant, I’m not certified to do much more than bring blankets, wipe butts, and run paperwork. But there is one other thing I am certified to do that is a major role in trauma, CPR. The doctor assigned me the job of chest compressions. He gave me a sticker to go onto my gown, similar to everyone else’s, but mine says “CPR” in big white letters surrounded by bright purple. I was prouder to wear that sticker than an elementary school kid who got a good job sticker from their third grade teacher. While the doctor finished assigning jobs to everyone, the paramedics start to roll around the corner with what looked like a big pile of blankets on the stretcher. “Female. 82 years old. Found locked outside of her house all night. Unresponsive and signs of major frostbite.”. The doctors don’t even let the paramedics get into the trauma room before they started swimming through the blankets to examine our patient. On the count of three, we switched our patient onto the bed and off the stretcher and the paramedics scurried away. I waited anxiously for the word to start my one single job. It felt like forever had gone by in those 30 seconds I had waited to hear from the doctor. I saw nurses franticly, but so calmly drawing blood, x-ray techs waiting outside to take their pictures, and volunteers hauling in load of warm blankets. The same people I was sitting at the nurses station with yesterday that dragged their feet to even walk five steps to get their paperwork were the fastest moving mammals on the planet in that moment. It sounds wrong, but all I wanted to hear in that moment was “start chest compressions”. I waited and waited for a whole minute, twisting my gown ties and bouncing on my heels nervously. I finally heard what I have been waiting for. The doctor didn’t even finish his sentence before I knew it was my time to shine. I clasped my right hand over my left and intertwined my sweaty fingers to make a latex glove sandwich. My feet jumped up onto the stool provided for me to stand on, to get better leverage, like a frog jumping away from a kid trying to catch it. Everything in the room tuned out and the only thing I could hear was my brain singing the infamous song “Staying Alive” as I counted to thirty compressions. After my thirty were up, another nurse gave the patient two breaths through a mask and a balloon. I counted intently. One. Two. Resume compressions. I honestly cannot say I remember much about what everyone else was doing in the room. My mind was only tuned into my counting, the patients breathing, and the doctor telling us to pause and resume. We attempted resuscitation for 43 minutes. That’s 43 minutes of franticly pushing medications. 43 minutes of chest compressions. 43 minutes of continuous warm blankets being piled on. 43 minutes of blood, sweat, and tears. After those 43 minuets, it was finally time for the doctor to make the call. The doctor looked at us, to the patient laying lifeless on the table, and back at us. I can only describe the look in his eyes as the look of God. In that moment, he got to decide the fate of this patient. She had been down for so long, there was no chance of oxygen supply to her brain. If we kept going, the best we could do was get her to a vegetative state. He had to decide. He looked at the patient one more time before that look of God turned into a look of defeat and said the fateful words; “Time of death 0712”. Those words left us in silence and stillness. No one wanted to be the first to move. Finally, one of the nurses let out a sniffle, ripped her gown off, threw it on the floor, and walked out. Slowly, everyone else followed more calmly. The last person to leave was the head doctor. He stood in the corner of the room and just prayed. The rest of us were greeted by the morning shift waiting for good news at the nurses’ station. Once they saw our defeat, no words needed to be exchanged. The doctor finally came out of the trauma room and we had our recap. He told us she was gone before she hit the stretcher and we did the best we could. His words attempted to make us feel better about the whole thing, but didn’t help much. There really isn’t anything anyone could have said to make me feel better about the situation. I get to look back onto that sleepless night and then one of the most frantic mornings of my life as such a learning experience. Your first loss in the healthcare field is unexplainable. You become so invested in the patient, whether or not you’ve known them for years or minutes. Your soul focus becomes keeping them alive, and when you fail, it hurts. It really makes you see things different. Life can come and go at any minute and not give us any warning. That woman did not wake up that morning thinking she would freeze to death. It really shows how you should cherish everything, from the smallest joys of finding a parking spot in a crowded lot to the biggest heartbreaks. It’s all a part of life, and it should be treated with such delicacy because it can slip through your fingers at any moment. Seeing how invested the doctor and other nurses got during that 43 minutes, it’s inspiring. Yes, we lost the patient. Maybe you don’t consider that a win, but we look at the whole event as an example of teamwork and dedication. Without even communicating verbally, we could tell what needed to be done and we did it. Not a single one of us knew that woman, her family, or anything about her, but we invested every ounce of effort we had into bringing her back. It shows passion and dedication and it’s something I’m proud to be a part of. If that isn’t something to stay up all night for, I don’t know what is. |
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