Open Heart {Under Revision}

Chapter 3- Chose your lies

I don't know how long I shouted Code Blue but at some point, I could no longer since my throat hurt.

It has been forty-five seconds since Tyra Clark flatlined, proved by the long whining of the heart monitor. The patient wasn't dead. No. She wasn't dead! She'd just flatlined and I needed to bring her back! I could bring her back! I could save her!

My hands pumped her chest uncoordinatedly while the ugly kneeeeing rang in my head. That sound was hated by every medical professional but in my case, it had imprinted its stronghold in my mind for almost a decade now. Ten years passed and gone, yet that sound brought me back there...to the day which completely twisted my life.

Every breath my patient took was shorter than the previous one, and it wasn't only her—her baby was within her and she was struggling as well. Despite the well conditioned cooling system of this room, sweat broke across my skin—filling me with desperation. Anaphylactic shock. She was under anaphylactic shock! An extremely lethal autoimmune reaction from our body in response to a hypersensitive antigen progressing inside, scrambling the MHCs heaven high.

All because she ate...

Darn it!

I have been howling for a minute now but nobody has shown up. Literally nobody came to this room and there wasn't a goddamn vasopressin shot nearby. The ER was basically two hallways away and that Code Team was nowhere in sight. To get the injection, I have no choice but to leave my patient but that choice could never be taken because the moment I stopped the compression, everything would shatter. Briser.

It is my first day! I cried out mentally. My patient...how am going to save my patient and her unborn baby?

Sensible thoughts replied back. Try to be calm, Charlotte. Remember what med school taught you.

Right. Right. Med school. When a patient displayed cardiac failure you needed to do cardiopulmanory resuscitation. Keep doing. Continue à faire!

So I frantically began performing CPR, moving step by step to make sure everything set in right. Two lives were on line and I needed to ignore the dread which the resounding flatline brought inside my stomach. Terror stabbed in my heart as thirty chest compressions were over. I threw the pillow and tilted Miss Tyra's head back before opening her mouth at the chin. I covered her nostrils with my fingers and then breathed into her mouth. I breathed in until I lifted to see her chest rising. My gut tangled when no rise of her chest occurred and I repositioned her head, moving to try again.

What will you do now, Charlotte?

My mind asked that question like a bang of cymbal ricocheting in quiet, empty room.

Check for baby's heart-rate.

"The baby...yes...the baby..." I rasped and put on my stethoscope in one hand while pressing on her chest with other. When I put the scope on her stomach, my heart staggered in place with slight relief. The baby's heart was slow and steady but she was restless, moving around as if feeling her mother's distress.

Alright. Alright, hang on, baby. I'll take care of your mommy.

"I'll take care." I whispered, pressing on her chest, "I'll take care of you both."

Tyra was pale, her skin a shade of ghost white. Her eyelids didn't move nor did her chest, and I certainly knew what was wrong with her. Anaphylaxis was a rare event during pregnancy, but its onset could possibly trigger maternal hypotension leading to intrapartum asphyxia and, eventually, the risk of severe fetal brain damage. Furthermore, the risk of cesarean delivery in anaphylactic patients during pregnancy was high. She consumed those nut crusted donut and now this...gosh, I specifically told Nurse Jackie to take care but she?! My lord, she was a nurse practitioner for god's sake! How could she make such a blunder—which has a chance to bring peril upon not one but two lives! I needed an adrenaline shot immediately. The only problem— I freaking couldn't stop these chest compressions which were to be done constantly. You couldn't let go of the compressions because if you didn't held on to it, the life would let you go. Where the heck this Code Team was!