Also, Love (Part 12)

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BY PETER SOLIS NERY
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Wednesday, February 28, 2018
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AS A NURSE myself, I know fully well that screaming at the nurses do not help. If I showed some attitude — say, if I was being difficult, or acting superior — they’ll probably ignore me. If I stressed them, and drove them off to panic, they’ll probably all wave me off.

But I’m not most nurses. I’m different. As a nurse, I treat everything as an emergency. But I also understand that there are many nurses who do not want to be stressed, or told what to do.

At the Sinai Hospital of Baltimore, I could not do anything. I was helpless. I was not R’s nurse. I wasn’t licensed to medically care for him in that hospital. (I only had a California RN license at that time.) I was going crazy. I could not even use my profession to rescue my husband! American legalities had my hands tied!

My voice was already hysterical. But the resident doctor was still reading R’s chart. She did not know R from Adam. She didn’t have a clue about my husband’s case.

It was the first time I saw this doctor, but I didn’t have a love at first sight for her. If at all, it was hate and aversion at first sight. She was acting stupid! Checking the computer first, instead of the patient? Fuck that x-ray! Check the patient first! Why didn’t she go into the room, check on the patient, so she’d see the actual patient’s condition?

I rushed back to R.

I held his hand again. His fingernails were turning blue.

“Sweetheart, if these were the last words you will hear from me, don’t you ever forget that I love you more than you will ever know. I love you so very much!”

“Don’t say that. I am here beside you. I am with you. I will never leave you. I love you, too.” My tears began to fall, and they burst like wellspring. I kissed him on the forehead. I kissed his lips coated with dried vomit. And I saw that his lips had turned blue.

I flew to the nurses’ station.

“What is wrong with you, people? Why don’t you help us? The patient is turning blue. My husband is pretty cyanotic now!”

And I was back in R’s room faster than a jumpy climbing perch.

Then, I saw him not breathing anymore. His hands were cold as death. And his eyes no longer blinked. I screamed.

The Charge Nurse came in. Then, she called out a code. And that’s when all the doctors and nurses rushed to R’s room, Room 6113.

It was only then, that they ran in a dramatic frenzy. When, somehow, I knew that R was gone. I looked at the clock on the wall — 8:29 p.m.

They administered the code. They took off his hospital gown. They intubated him. They applied the Ambu bag to force oxygen into his lungs. They pressed and squashed his chest — several cycles of thirty compressions. They pushed epinephrine, dopamine, norepinephrine, and other medicines.

And all the while, I was just there outside his room, wailing. Crying in anger, “I told you so! I told you all! Why didn’t you listen to me ealier? Why didn’t you believe me? Why didn’t you come sooner when you all still had a chance to save his life?” (To be continued/PN)
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