Code Blues Read Online Free PDF Page B

I was Saint Hope at the stake. "Do you
have diarrhea?" That one was hard. I made shooing motions around my
rear end. Even the patient laughed.
    During the physical exam,
my hands traversed all over her abdomen, while I asked if it hurt.
" Dolor? Dolor ?"
    The family enjoyed this
demonstration of fifty percent of my Spanish vocabulary (the other
word I knew was si , or yes) and praised my excellent command of the language.
" Très bien !" The
patient beamed at me. She didn't look too pained. I was in the
middle of asking her to turn over for a rectal exam when I heard a
flat woman's voice from the speakers overhead, "CODE. BLUE.
OPERATING ROOM."
    I froze.
    " CODE. BLEU. BLOC OPÉRATOIRE ."
    The pink curtain ripped open, revealing Dr.
Dupuis' flushed face. "Come on!" he yelled.
    We flew around the nursing station and past
the X-ray light boxes. He slammed the side door open with the heel
of his hand. We dashed down the narrow back hallway.
    He punched open another teal door. As we
sprinted up two flights of stairs, one of my black leather clogs
almost went airborne. I jammed my foot back into it. Dr. Dupuis
ended up a half-flight ahead of me, but I caught up to him on the
landing.
    We dashed left, and then another left past
the elevators, and then we were at the T junction of a hallway and
Dr. Dupuis was yelling, "Where is it?" at a guy in a white uniform
and a blue bonnet-cap.
    The guy pointed back over Dr. Dupuis's
shoulder. "Men's change room!"
    Dr. Dupuis doubled-back a few steps and
shoved open the door to a small, jaundice-yellow room.
    Should I follow him in a men's room?
    The door nearly swung shut again. I thrust
it open.
    Beige lockers lined the four yellow walls
and made a row down the middle of the room. A wooden bench
stretched lengthwise in each half-room.
    In the far half, wedged between the bench
and the lockers, I spotted a pair of men's leather shoes. The feet
sprawled away from each other. The scuffed gray soles of the shoes
pointing toward me.
    Dr. Dupuis crouched at the man's head, blocking my view of
the top, but someone had yanked the man's charcoal T-shirt up to
his armpits, exposing his white belly and chest, above his brown
leather belt and khaki pants.
    A black woman in a white coat pressed her
fingers against the side of the man's throat. "There's no
pulse."
    "I'll start CPR!" I yelled, running toward
them. I'd only ever seen one code blue, on a sick patient in the
emergency room who didn't make it. I'd never heard of a code in a
men's room. We didn't even have gloves. Mouth-to-mouth wasn't my
first choice.
    I knelt on the cold tile floor, my arms
extended, hands laced, and braced to do CPR. Then I finally saw the
man's face.
    His features were mottled purple, his filmy
eyes fixed half-open, his jaw hanging open under his moustache.
    The man was dead. Long dead. Cause NYD.
    Dr. Dupuis lifted his stethoscope from the
man's hairy brown chest, his face grim. "I'm calling it. Eight
twenty-four."
    He was calling the time of death. I had only
seen that once, after the code. After we had tried intubation, CPR,
drugs, and even a pericardiocentesis to try and remove any blood
from around the heart. It was too late to try, for this man.
    Dr. Dupuis pressed his fingers against the
man's cheekbone. I flinched, but the purple color overriding the
face didn't blanch. "Livor mortis," he said.
    I took a deep breath. I remembered that from
my forensic pathology course. After someone dies, gravity makes the
blood pool and discolors any skin that's not under pressure. I'd
just never seen it up close and personal. Now, avoiding the man's
staring eyes, I could see that his anterior flanks were also
blotched purple. He had died on his stomach.
    I poked my index finger against his mottled
flank, indenting the cool skin. As I pulled back, the flesh slowly
rebounded, but still didn't change color.
    Dr. Dupuis voice was loud and sudden in my
ear. "Let him go."
    I recoiled, wiping my finger against my
scrub pants, but he was