I'm Sorry for This
This brings back sad memories. It was so terrible. Like I mean, first rotation ever and you’re all bright eyed and excited, “I’ll be doing this for the rest of my life. Saving lives.” And the first deliveries are an amazing experience. Watching this new life take it’s first breath. And when I was suctioning out the babies lungs, he grabbed my finger and I knew that what I was doing was what I needed to be doing. “Welcome to the world.” But then it’s your first death. My first death was in the DR. Doing it for two days, I already knew the drill. I had on my sterile gloves. “Let’s do this.” Maybe I didn’t hear or or maybe they didn’t tell the student nurses but there was no FHR. There hadn’t been one for weeks. So the baby was stillborn. He wasn’t fully developed, places where... Holes. There was a silence, or maybe I imagined it. The OB called me over since I had on my gloves, to help him stitch the baby back together. I was just too shocked I held the stutures and watched, jaws clenched trying not to cry. The OB lost his grip, the blood and amniotic fluid, and the baby slipped out of his hand into the bassinet. So delicate... The stutures on his scalp broke and I lost it. I laughed because if I didn’t I’d cry. The worst part is that the mother knew, and the father didn’t. He was expecting a son.
And I’ll always remember the second death. Another father’s tears.
Keeping a man alive, ambu bagging by hand because the family couldn’t afford a mechanical ventilator.
Two weeks ago, thinking that I was already used to death then they brought in the victims of a hostage taking to our ER. So much blood on the tiles and this pair of converse whose owner was being worked on. Hearing “Take this body to the morgue” more than once. Trying so hard not to think of who these tourists used to be, and four days later failing because I had to know. There was a family of five on that bus... One woman lost everyone but her son, the only person they saved that night in the ER. Her husband and her two daughters. Gone.
And I’ll always remember the second death. Another father’s tears.
Keeping a man alive, ambu bagging by hand because the family couldn’t afford a mechanical ventilator.
Two weeks ago, thinking that I was already used to death then they brought in the victims of a hostage taking to our ER. So much blood on the tiles and this pair of converse whose owner was being worked on. Hearing “Take this body to the morgue” more than once. Trying so hard not to think of who these tourists used to be, and four days later failing because I had to know. There was a family of five on that bus... One woman lost everyone but her son, the only person they saved that night in the ER. Her husband and her two daughters. Gone.