"Pushing the epi."
"Tube!"
"Light!"
It kept playing over and over inside my head.
"She's in V-fib."
The frantic beeping of the monitors...
"Ventilate!"
The toddler lying on the bed...
"Paddles!"
...one IV going on each arm...
"Clear!"
Five people rushing through the protocol to resuscitate her...
"Clear!"
The ECG line remained flat.
I kept wondering if there was anything else I could have done. What if...?
Over those images, the parents'. Crying in horror, in disbelief. They'd been twenty four seven by her bedside for the last three days. They had walked away for a moment to get some coffee, a short reprieve. When they'd come back, there was nothing to come back to.
Elbows on my desk, I grabbed my hair and squeezed, stopping short of pulling it off. I'd given my everything to save this girl, and yet...
I felt powerless, and I felt rage. Rage against myself for the guilt I insisted on feeling, rage at those parents, rage at everything in the world for being so... meaningless.
This wasn't my first time losing a patient, not even the first loss of a child-patient. I'd been a doctor for seven years now, it was only natural. Yet, it doesn't seem to get any easier. It gets harder and harder every time.
Maybe I just wasn't meant to be a doctor at all. It had been my choice, for the most part. I had joined med school willingly.
Then, there had been this time when I'd considered giving up medicine, joining the family business and work in finance. I'd felt some pressure, then. My parents had already warmed up to the idea of having a doctor in the family - I was the first one - and to the kind of status that brought along.
So, I'd convinced myself I was just going through a phase, and went forward. The work was actually stimulating, so I kept going, telling myself that I'd get used to all the misery, the deaths, the guilt, that I'd learn to focus on the good parts. I kept telling myself that someday I would be able to turn off my work brain to leave ample space to mind my personal life, that I'd be able to forget about my suffering patients, for whom I'd done everything in my power already, as long as I could go back home at the end of the day and snuggle up in bed with Aiden.
Seven years...
A knock on the door pulled me out of it.
"Dr. Raynor?"
I smiled despite myself.
"Aiden."
The only person I wouldn't yell out of there in that moment. The one I couldn't place in a meaningless world.
He came in, we flirted as usual.
I thought I had managed to dodge the subject. And then...
"Are you telling me what happened, though?"
There are those people who become nurses because they can't get in med school, because they can't get out of med school, because they think it might be cool, or because they just can think of nothing else to do with their lives.
Aiden is none of those. He's a natural caregiver. He will take care of you even when you don't want him to, even when you think you don't need taking care of. He's the perfect nurse. That's what made me fall in love with him in the first place, back when I was still an intern.
"What was it? Abused kid? Raped kid? Neglected kid?"
I lowered my face so he wouldn't see me flinch. Each one of his words brought forth an endless stream of hideous memories: Sarah Davies, six years old, arm broken by her own father; Kip Adams, eight years old, severe anal laceration, suspected sexual abuse by his uncle; Amy Noel, ten years old, chronic asthma, getting worse every time she moved to a different foster home. Rosa Rodriguez, three years old, measles pneumonia. Dead.
"I'm always here for you, married or not, you hear me?"
Hearing those words, I wanted nothing more than to grab Aiden and escape to some faraway place, forget about everything but him.
Yet, I sent him away. I wasn't ready to share the whole of my internal turmoil, not even with him, not yet.
"See you tonight."
"See ya."
For a moment, my mind did a fast-forward to the upcoming evening. It was Aiden's turn to make dinner, since I left work later, but I could grab something special on the way there. Maybe a good wine, or an aromatic massage oil?
And then the fantasy retreated, leaving only little Rosa's parents, crying. How could I be having fun while that family was in shambles?
I was painfully slow to fulfill the paperwork I had due. I left some for later so I could be at the clinic on time.
And then it began: the parade of colics, runny noses and tonsillitis cases, with a couple swallowed pennies to break the routine. Not that I would complain. Routine is good when one has his head elsewhere. It allowed me to function properly in auto mode.
"Everything seems to be fine with Joe now," I told the first time mother. She was in her early twenties, girl-next-door pretty, not too tall, curvy... The kind of woman that made me wonder from time to time. "We can schedule his vaccination, it's due next month."
"Huh... about that, Dr. Raynor..." The woman hesitated. "I've been thinking about it... I'm not sure I want to go through with it."
"I'm sorry, go through with what?"
I knew what she meant, I knew it all too well. I was just buying myself some time to calm down, so I wouldn't say anything I'd regret later. This wasn't a good day.
"With the vaccines and all that. I mean, I know he's had a few already but... I've been reading all these stories online... It got me a bit scared about it all."
"Do you want to hear a scary story, Mrs. Jackson?" I managed to say it softly, not a sliver of aggression in my tone. "I lost a patient this morning. A three-year-old girl."
The woman held her infant closer to her chest, as if to protect him from my words. How ironic, when he needed to be protected from her!
"This girl's parents had been reading online too. They decided not to vaccinate her. She got measles, which got complicated. She died."
Mrs. Jackson was now rocking little Joe back and forth, eyes wide. It wasn't like me to be this crude with my patients, or their parents. But it was necessary sometimes.
"She could have been still alive if she'd been vaccinated," I concluded, deflated. "So maybe you want to think about it a little more...?"
Slowly, she nodded at me. "Ok." She kissed her son's forehead once, twice, before raising her gaze back to me. "I'm sorry..."
That was more pity than I could handle in a single day. I managed to smile, patted the infant's head, and strode out the door that lead back inside the hospital's facilities. I leaned on the wall right outside, pinching the bridge of my nose between thumb and forefinger.
"Ah, there you are!"
I felt myself glaring, so much so that Nadia took a step back. Nadia who, despite being a small woman, was not so easily intimidated.
"Are you ok?" Her hand raised to the chest pocket of her navy blue scrubs, where she held her penlight. Being a Neurology intern, to see someone grab their heads elicits this conditioned response where you have a urge to check someone's pupils and prick and prod them in places.
It made me smile.
"Yes," I lied.
"You're sure? You seemed disturbed." Her fingers were still wrapped around the penlight.
"It's nothing. Nothing I shouldn't be used to, anyway."
Her eyebrows flew up her forehead, hiding behind her blond fringe.
"Anti-vaxxers," I clarified.
"Oh!" Nadia's tiny features scrunched up in solidarity. She finally let go of the light, before showing me what she held in her other hand. A couple of flyers. "Well, maybe this can cheer you up. Dr. Boyle can't go to San Francisco's seminar. She told me I should bring her invitation to you. There'll be some lectures in pediatric neurology that might interest you."
I took the flyers from her. A four days seminar. Four days to be away from hospital life.
"Can we take a plus one?" I couldn't remember the last time I had made any kind of vacation trip with Aiden.
Nadia feigned outrage. "I'm not good enough company for you? I'm hurt!"
"You know I like my women more..." I mimed looking for the right word.
"...male?" She laughed, slapping my arm. "I think it's fine to bring Aiden, you just have to give them prior notice."
"Thanks. Thank Boyle for me, I..." I sighed, gesturing towards the door beside me. "I have to get back now."
"See you later."
I got back inside the examination room for my last patient of the day, knowing I would still have to tackle all that paperwork.
The prospect for a getaway was nice.
Yet I couldn't shake the feeling that, while I'd be enjoying California's sun, little Joes would still not take their vaccines, little Sarahs would still be spanked purple, little Amies would still be going from house to house. Little Rosas would still be dead.
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I still thank you for reading this far ;)