[IF] 1 - Fall
I don't scare easily. Not like that horror movie scare though, because that's another story. I mean the heart in your throat wondering just what's going on type scared. The kind where you think that this could be it, this could be the end of everything you had been clinging to.
My pager went off, and almost all the pages have different codes, and all of them have patient names attached to them, just so that when you get the page you know exactly where you need to be going to. When my pager went off that afternoon I was scared. I probably shouldn't have let myself even get to that point, but by then it was already far beyond anything I could have stopped on my own.
Denny had gotten his LVAD, and it was going to help bridge the gap between the day to day, and when he would finally get his heart. He needed the LVAD, and I knew it, but at the same time it was a lot of risk to take. Sticking by his choice, and his attempt at trying to make his life a bit easier to manage I admit I panicked when the code came to her pager. It was Denny, and something was wrong.
A million things raced through my mind, malfunction, arrest, anything and everything that could go wrong might have gone wrong. I found him with a nurse at his side and that look of stubborn frustration on his face. He had pushed too hard, too fast. I tried to not show that concern, that scared look that I might have lost him in the time it took me to get to him. I knew he didn't need it, he didn't need me worried about him anymore than he already had to deal with.
He had fallen though, and it scared me that it happened, probably more that he let it happen. He knew the LVAD wasn't going to make things better, that it was just meant to make things easier on him. He fell and all I wanted to do was to help him get back up, I wanted to help him see that he wasn't alone.
That night the line that I knew I had been dancing around, the line between patient and doctor blurred beyond recognition. I was going to be there for him, and not because I needed to be there, but because I wanted to be needed. I was going to stay by his side that night, not because I wanted him to feel better, or not to feel alone, but because I knew he wasn't alone anymore, that no matter how many times he fell, I wanted to be there helping him get back up.
My pager went off, and almost all the pages have different codes, and all of them have patient names attached to them, just so that when you get the page you know exactly where you need to be going to. When my pager went off that afternoon I was scared. I probably shouldn't have let myself even get to that point, but by then it was already far beyond anything I could have stopped on my own.
Denny had gotten his LVAD, and it was going to help bridge the gap between the day to day, and when he would finally get his heart. He needed the LVAD, and I knew it, but at the same time it was a lot of risk to take. Sticking by his choice, and his attempt at trying to make his life a bit easier to manage I admit I panicked when the code came to her pager. It was Denny, and something was wrong.
A million things raced through my mind, malfunction, arrest, anything and everything that could go wrong might have gone wrong. I found him with a nurse at his side and that look of stubborn frustration on his face. He had pushed too hard, too fast. I tried to not show that concern, that scared look that I might have lost him in the time it took me to get to him. I knew he didn't need it, he didn't need me worried about him anymore than he already had to deal with.
He had fallen though, and it scared me that it happened, probably more that he let it happen. He knew the LVAD wasn't going to make things better, that it was just meant to make things easier on him. He fell and all I wanted to do was to help him get back up, I wanted to help him see that he wasn't alone.
That night the line that I knew I had been dancing around, the line between patient and doctor blurred beyond recognition. I was going to be there for him, and not because I needed to be there, but because I wanted to be needed. I was going to stay by his side that night, not because I wanted him to feel better, or not to feel alone, but because I knew he wasn't alone anymore, that no matter how many times he fell, I wanted to be there helping him get back up.