Just Here Trying to Save a Few Lives: Tales of Life and Death from the ER Read Online Free PDF Page B

Forget the patient; this is between you and Him. But then, you've always had a very special adversarial relationship with God, just like every other practicing physician you know.
    So they hate you and you hate yourself even though this has really very little to do with you. But each death still leaves its mark on you, every telling, every “I'm sorry but he has died…” always leaves its little bruise and sometimes more than a bruise. Last week, for example, you had a classic “sudden cardiac death” patient, a fifty-two-year-old male with no history of medical problems, no previous cardiac symptoms, who suddenly collapsed at church. You took the radio call—which didn't sound promising. On scene, per paramedics, the patient was apneic—not breathing—and the monitor showed an “agonal” rhythm, the heart's electronic death rattle. By the time the team arrived at the hospital the patient was in asystole—flat line. He was also wearing a tuxedo. In fact, he was the first patient you ever tried to resuscitate who was wearing a tuxedo. You had to hack away at the black tuxedo jacket with your trauma scissors, cursing all the while, in order to get your monitor leads on his chest. He stayed in asystole too, never a hint of anything else. After twenty minutes of drugs, cardioversion and CPR, it was clear that this was all useless, so you raised a hand. “Let's call it a day,” you said. Time pronounced: 4:14 P.M. Pam immediately turned to the paramedic. “The tuxedo,” she said. “What gives?”
    As it turned out, the patient was the father of the bride at a wedding. He had seen his daughter get married and then collapsed during the reception. The paramedics told you all this so you knew up front that, in this case, talking to the family was going to be a very bad scene. But still you weren't prepared. They were sitting in the grieving room, a tiny cubbyhole of a room back behind the security office. There was the patient's wife—the mother of the bride—wearing a beige dress, pearls and an orchid corsage; the groom was in another tuxedo, then the maid of honor, and, of course, the bride. A flower girl sat in the corner weeping, unnoticed and uncomforted. The rest of them sat there, stony faced, looking at you as you walked in the door. They expected the worst and they were dead on, but still you just stood there, looking at the corsage, the tuxedo and the pearls, anything but anybody's face. You had no idea what to say and you don't really remember what you finally came up with. Afterward you came out of the room quaking, and sat down out in the nurses' station in front of Pam, palms sweaty, hands shaking a little.
“I can't believe it,”
you told her, “I had to tell someone in a
bridal dress
that her father had died.”
    “Bummer,” Pam had said.
    But that was last week. Tonight, thank God, there is no wedding. This woman's death was a release if ever there was one. Still, you would give anything not to have to talk to the family. You are so tired you feel like your skin has been peeled away exposing every neuron to the open air.
    “Who's the next of kin?” you ask Pam.
    She pushes the chart toward you. “Daughter,” she says. “In Phoenix.”
    You sigh, half glad that at the very least you don't have to talk to the woman face-to-face.
    Usually you try not to notify a family on the phone, but tonight there doesn't look to be a choice. You paw through the chart and miscellaneous pieces of paper that have accrued during the course of this death until you find a phone number for the daughter. You dial the hospital operator and it takes her a long time to answer; she was probably asleep in her chair.
    The call rings through, rings and rings until finally a sleepy voice asks, “Hello?”
    “Hello, Mrs.…” You shuffle frantically back through the stack of papers in front of you looking for the registration sheet. “Mrs.…You had it just a moment ago. Finally you give up. “Are you Helen Jablonski's