"If you didn't bring lunch, I am going over to the food court..."
The food court? Hell no, was my instant reaction.
"No thanks, I'll be fine with the peanut butter and crackers here," I interrupted her.
She gave me a knowing smile, "I wasn't asking you to come, I was just going to offer to bring you something from there."
"Oh, of course. Thank you so much. I'll just take that Tuna sandwich you got me last time."
She nodded and started to walk away. But just before the corner of the hallway she paused and turned to give me the look that I had seen her give our patients so many times. The one that said, I am not certain myself but I wish for my words to come true.
"Even the deepest of wounds heal with time," I heard her say quietly.
She didn't wait for me to reply, she just gave me instructions to follow up on the blood tests for our patient in Room 1502, and disappeared around the corner. Leaving me a with mix of emotions suspended between my past and present.
Perhaps, she was right and time was all I needed.
Till, then being holed up in this ICU, away from the Children's Hospital, was just what I desired.
Little, did I know.
*******
Our 40 year old patient in Room 1502, was suffering from a blood cancer and was admitted with severe bacterial infection. The chemotherapy drugs he had received had suppressed his bone marrow, resulting in decreased levels of all his blood cells. Right now his biggest problem were his platelets, the cells critically important for clotting blood.
"Dr Khan, your patient's platelet test came back. They are less than 10 right now", the nurse popped her head into the resident room to update me.
Less than 10,000 per microliter was significantly lower than the normal which should be more than 150,000.
"Thanks for letting me know, I am putting in an order for platelet transfusion. Could you make sure he gets it right away," I replied to the nurse.
Unfortunately, when I went to see the patient just a few minutes later, multiple IV sites were oozing blood. I asked the nurse to give a second bag of platelets to the patient, clearly one was not going to be enough. His blood pressure was becoming dangerously low, and his blood oxygen was was starting to dip below normal, despite him being on maximum Oxygen through the nasal cannula. All signs pointed towards worsening bacterial infection that was probably spreading through out his body.
"Could you give him another bolus of fluids," I told the nurse while urgently paging Madi.
"Dr Khan, I am running out of IV lines to put all these fluids through," the nurse let me know. I knew we would have to get another line in him quickly if we were going to get ahead of his rapidly worsening condition.
Thankfully, both Madi and the attending walked in soon after and I appraised them of the patient's condition. We all agreed that we would need more line access to give him the platelets, fluids, antibiotics and heart medications all at the same time. Plus, he was breathing very rapidly now and not responding to us when we asked him questions.
"Omar, go ahead and intubate him so we can put him on the ventilator. And I'll get a femoral line in," Madi said, as she took charge of the situation. (A femoral line is put in to the femoral vein, a major vein in the groin area. Its a good place to access the blood in emergencies since it is relatively easy to put in...though not always)
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Mending Broken Hearts
Romance#2 in the desi medical romance series He couldn't get over his ex-fiancé who had unceremoniously broken off their engagement just five days before their wedding. She was engaged to a man who did not respect her or her work. Neither were looking for...
5. Few Seconds
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