More than Semantics
How about missing that which is right in front of you? A scratch ticket with the winning numbers? The solution to a puzzle? A street sign?
HereÃs one of mine. Late fall, 1980, while I was working at Emerson Hospital as a respiratory therapist.
ì I feel sick. Is it hot in here? IÃm sweating, but I feel cold.î
MarthaÃs forehead glistened with small beads of perspiration. Adjusting the oxygen in her air conditioned room, and nearing the end of my shift, I was in a hurry to finish. Minutes before, she was attached to monitors in the Coronary Care Unit; now deemed stable, she had moved a floor closer to home.
Martha wiped her face with the loose sleeve of her johnny and repeated her question, ìWhy am I sweating?î She looked worried and embarrassed to be complaining, a mother accustomed to taking care of, not being cared for. I looked, I listened and I dismissed it all. Here I stood, in my white lab jacket; there she lay, looking for reassurance. That I could give. Help, apparently not.
I left Martha, sweating, but not diaphoretic. Had I thought diaphoretic would I have alerted her doctor? The head nurse? Diaphoretic implies a medical cause for sweat. Associated with heart attacks it is often accompanied by a sense of foreboding. In hospitals it is rarely mentioned without its companion, chest pain. But I only saw sweat.
I told her, ìYouÃll be okay. ”
Ten minutes later, and back in our office preparing my patient report for Dave, the gangly night guy, I heard the code. I didn’t need a nurse to shout the room number. I didnÃt need to stare at MarthaÃs upside down face to know it was she. Between chest compressions, I slid the endotracheal tube past her beige vocal cords.
Jesus CHRIST, Michael! And to think I just spent the better part of two days in the woods with you, arriving in your driveway to leave but minutes after you posted this……… No wonder your sleep was quantum/sequential.
And how, pray tell, does this tale (or confessional) end? Or is that beside the point?
Comment by adam — September 7, 2003 @ 8:16 pm
I blame this one ( and a few more to come) on Diane. In conversation with friends, she said, ìMichael has lots of stories.î I thought, everyone does, they just donÃt tell them.
And, as usual, your comments were on point. Might have been a bit of a confessional because this weekend I felt better. But I think it had more to do with the perfect weather, great company, and the cool waters of Spoons Pond.
She died.
Comment by Michael — September 7, 2003 @ 8:44 pm
I found this story to be too telegraphic to
emphasize with it. But then, despite living
with nurse Beth, I’m totally at a loss when
anyone talks about hospital goings-on. My
brain seems to shut down when I hear words like
diaphoretic and endotracheal, (which require
the left brain, which doesn’t talk
to my right brain), especially in the midst of
a moving, emotionally-driven story.
Comment by ed — September 10, 2003 @ 11:12 am
Diane tells me that not only does my left brain talk to my right, and vice versa, but they do it out loud.
Comment by Mike — September 10, 2003 @ 6:34 pm
Probably best (for all of us) that you abandoned that career.
Comment by Chris — September 11, 2003 @ 7:32 pm