(To Follow This Story Please See: Day At The Office: Day 1)
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Day 2
Ahh it's Day Two. At least there is a Day Two. The aftermath of a battlefield always seems to have a slow mist rising from it as if a call to fallen souls from Heaven. The beach after a storm smells fresh and and hints at a crisp invitation for renewal to the swimmer, wanderer, or the newly lost.
And somewhere stranded between those metaphors, lies the silhouette of yesterday's efforts. So as today begins, the canvas I walk into is absent color but not without hope. A grainy oil painting telling today's story, dapples of oil applied with brush strokes for highlights and half tones, all in grey scale.
I had alot of time to think about our patient last night and this morning. I arrived to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at 3:00 pm to begin a shift of 19 hours watching the heart-lung machine as he had been placed on ECMO late last night.
The night was restless as different scenarios and "what-if's" comingled with my dreams and rose to the surface faster and more furiously than the bubbles rising and convoluting from the ocean floor that I was swimming over. Certainly his age (25) and outward appearance of great strength and invincibility, made me wonder when whatever felled this oak tree, would eventually turn towards me, see past my shadow, and begin to lay waste.
Time to wake up and go...
Memories of a book I had read as a child surfaced, of Walter Reed and his tremendous courage as he studied the origins of yellow fever, eventually drilling down to the mosquito (Aedis Egypti) as the only plausible vector, and summarily allowing one to infect him- thus proving his theory. So of course the question of potential risk versus sacrifice was tabled for discussion.
Discussions of the soul. When Ben Hur tosses caution to the wind, and clutches his mother to his arms and body, a mother ravaged with leprosy thus subjecting himself to the dreaded disease, yet freeing him of something far worse, cowardice and indifference, that was a discussion that may not always set you free, but recognizing courage in yourself if only for a moment, well that goes a long way. But enough of that.
The question of risk and possible infection is something that each attending Nurse, Physician, Respiratory Therapist, and a whole slew of medical support personell, must ask themselves before comitting to rendering hands on care to what is suggested be- a potential deluge of critically ill patients.
So everybody showed up, unvaccinated because of a dearth of supply and government parcelling, totally cognizant that the high frequency oscillator that was being used to keep the patient's lungs compliant, was also an open sytem aerosolizing the virus into the surrounding room air ensuring everybody’s exposure. Essentially a microbial mist of potential contamination was rising and released to all attending to our patient's care.
That was our collective Ben Hur moment. We flinched, but we all showed up and stayed.
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To follow this story go to part 3
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