passing

Have been away so long, I'm looking for reasons not to blog. So easily un-rutted. Anyway, finished up ICU. Long hard slog. Emotionally draining, even on the periphery as I was. On my very last day, "Frank" died. He'd been in ICU for a couple months, a fixture in the corner room my whole rotation. I took care of him one day when the resident was off. It turned out to be his last really good day. We "talked" a little bit about the sudoku puzzles he was doing to pass the time. He was connected to the ventilator via a trach and so couldn't actually verbalize but he was very good at mouthing words. We dropped by for a visit every morning on rounds, but as it became clear medical science had nothing more to offer Frank, the visits became more and more perfunctory until the attending just stopped going into the room at all. He was on "comfort care." A morphine drip. His brother's came in every day and talked to him for hours. He had his 25th birthday party with a few balloons and streamers. The nurses came and sang "Happy Birthday. There was a small cake he couldn't eat.
On that last day, I was sitting at the nurses station just staring off into space and happened to look at the telemetry monitors. I noticed that Frank's heart was beating really fast. And I thought to myself. This is it. He's dying. For reasons I'm still not sure of, I walked right into his room and pulled on gloves, ready to help. But there was thankfully nothing to do. He was a "no code" and so as his heart began to beat erratically and then fail, there was nothing to administer or attend to. Just to be with him. Touch his leg, his arm as he struggled to resist the body's betrayal. One his brothers was there, but didn't know what to do. "Talk to him," said the nurse. "Let him know that you're here." She rubbed his brow and said, "You're a beautiful man. Go to that beautiful place." The other nurse placed her palm over his eyes, but the lids wouldn't shut. He kept staring, and breathing, and breathing, and then nothing. The attending, Dr. S., materialized behind me and said, "Listen for a heart beat." Sucking tears into my throat, I unlooped my stethescope and listened hard. There is a lot of white noise between a body and the ears, but nothing resembling the living heart. Everyone crying, the nurses backed away and left his brother at the body's side. Dr. S offered to call his mother. He declined. I walked out to the nurses station, to the chaos, where six people were industriously scribbling notes and making phone calls and unaware that a life had ended 20 feet away. One of the interns arrived at just that moment from the coffee shop downstairs. "Thanks," I said, when she handed me my coffee. "I really could use this."
Rest in peace, Frank.