March 27, 2013
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….prayers….
We pushed the heavy bed through the hallways to the big elevator. W bagged the patient through his fresh tracheostomy while I tugged at the foot of the bed, “Is his oxygen saturation any better?” W nods, “It’s 97%. I’m not sure why it was low in the room.” Visitors pause to gawk so I pull the bed a little faster. Soon we’re inside the big elevator, quiet except for the sound of the patient breathing against W’s efforts. He’s probably just about ready to come off the ventilator upstairs. His eyes open on occasion, but they focus on nothing, the pupils pinpoint from the narcotics he received during surgery.
When we arrive in ICU we noisily proceed to his room, all monitors, IV pumps, ventilator and glass walled. There is a tiny bathroom but the patients never use them. We give report, help connect the patient to monitors and the ventilator, and gather our things to leave.
The visitor in the next room looks at me sadly. I recognize him and his wife. She’s been in hospitals for the last 3 years. My students took care of her. Both of them were demanding, but she’s become so frail and he’s come to the realization that she’ll not be coming home. She’s on contact precautions for a bacterial infections. I stand at the doorway, “I saw you in the cafeteria a few weeks back, so I knew that she didn’t go home.” He looked at me, resigned, “It’s not for us to know when.” She was close to death; he knew it. Somehow, she was hanging on. “I’ve been praying for you….for comfort,” I told him sincerely. Words fail me then, because the deepest sorrow isn’t soothed by words. Despair is something that simply has to settle in the middle of the room, huge and terrible. When it decides to move along it meanders out, stopping to inspect the corners of the room, waiting to see if it will be invited back.
I left with an empty heart. Prayers do little to fill the void when someone is not long on this Earth. Comfort is empty. It’s a chapter that’s winding down to it’s end.
I ride the elevator alone. It’s not for us to know when.
