Mending Broken Hearts

27. A Plea

And then there were the protests in our neighborhood, against yet another episode of police brutality against an African-American, except that this time it was caught on video and was shared widely. The anger and resentment from these repeated episodes was pouring out onto the streets across the country. I was sure that the frustration from the pandemic had not helped calm down the situation, neither did the heavy handedness of the police when dealing with these protests.

18 yr-old patient suffering from tear gas induced respiratory distress, cardiac arrhythmia and a dislocated shoulder.

I typed out my last patient's note, still struggling to understand how unarmed civilians exercising their right to protest could be dealt with so viciously by those who had sworn to protect them. In the midst of us dealing with a pandemic, the ER was now also flooding with patients with all sorts of blunt-force trauma. 

"Hey man." A familiar voice made me look up from the computer. I was surprised to see Salman standing there. The guy seemed to have disappeared in the last few weeks. 

"Oh hey. What are you doing here?" 

"Heard you have an 18 yr old with a cardiac arrhythmia. The adult cardiology team is slammed so asked the peds team to take a look," he replied in a strangely monotonous tone. So unlike him. 

I handed him my patient's EKG. "Got it. This kid was at the protest last night and had exposure to tear gas. He was complaining of chest pain, so we did an EKG which shows a first-degree heart block."

"Probably unrelated to the tear gas," he looked at the print out in his hand, "but I'll go see him." Before he could move away though, I held him back. 

"By the way, how come you haven't been returning my texts? Is everything ok with you?"

As he glanced in my direction, the weariness in his eyes was evident, even through the protective goggles he donned. His subdued tone failed to mask the distress, and he shook his head slowly. "Nothing is ok," he murmured. 

His gaze wandered around the ER. The harsh fluorescent lights overhead seemed to amplify the weariness etched across his face. The chaos of the emergency room buzzed around us with beeping machines and urgent voices, a stark contrast to the heavy silence that hung between our words.

"What do you mean?" I finally asked. 

"Everywhere there is death and destruction. How is a man supposed to protect his wife and premature daughter?"

"Salman, they'll be fine InshaAllah-"

He cut me off, "Every one of these patients thought they would be fine, didn't they? No one thinks tragedy would strike them, it just does."

I was no mental health expert, but it was starting to make sense now. When Salman saw these patients he didn't just see them for who they were. Unlike me, who would go home and at least try to disassociate from what I saw every day, he probably mulled over it. His mind constantly making a connection between what happened to his wife just 8 months ago, to the present situation.

His words made me wonder. Does he have PTSD? 

"Are you still living alone in a hotel?" I asked him, remembering our conversation the last time we met, several weeks ago. 

He looked away, his shoulders slumped, "I go home every now and then."

I wish I had been able to talk to him more, but the code blue alarm went off just then forcing me to drop everything and run to the room where yet another patient was unconscious, and CPR had commenced.

"He's COVID positive," the attending warned as soon as I opened the door. 

Elijah and I looked at each other as I quickly closed the door again. We both knew what the attending meant, despite the fact that he and a nurse were the only ones in the patient's room at the moment, and in any other circumstance there would be at least half a dozen other people rushing into the room. Crucial minutes had to be sacrificed in saving the patient's life so that we could don the proper gear and decrease the risk of getting COVID ourselves. There was no other way around it, no matter how guilty we felt for putting ourselves first.