fostering the humanistic practice of medicine publishing personal accounts of illness and healing encouraging health care advocacy

Search
Close this search box.

fostering the humanistic practice of medicine publishing personal accounts of illness and healing encouraging health care advocacy

Search
Close this search box.

The Fighter

This was the third time he coded. Dean had been in the ICU for over a week without any visitors, telephone calls, flowers or balloons. He came in after an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest which he survived and subsequently had another arrest halfway through his stay here. He sure was a fighter.

With special help from the ICU team, we found a contact number for his mother after doing some research on the internet. I was tasked to call her and inform her he was in the hospital.

I had barely finished rehearsing my speech when he became unresponsive. A code blue was called and chest compressions ensued. My senior resident signaled to me to make the call. I nervously dialed the number and secretly prayed she wouldn’t answer.

“Hello,” said the soft voice on the other end of the phone. It took me a few seconds to gather courage to introduce myself and inform her why and where I was calling. She said she hadn’t seen or spoken to Dean in a few years.

As the code continued, I explained to her that he was dying, and the team was working on him. She asked for more explanation, so I told her people were pushing on his chest to pump his heart. And that he was getting medications to help accomplish the same task.

It felt unreal. I imagined her sitting on a chair, frail, holding tightly to the phone with tears softly streaming down her cheeks.

She wanted me to stay on the phone with her, so I complied. She enquired about my background. It felt awkward telling her about my life as I looked into Dean’s room and saw the chest compressions still ongoing.

After a while, I looked at my watch and realized that fifteen minutes had passed since we started the conversation. I desperately wanted to get off the phone but felt so sad for her that all I could do was hold on tightly to the phone.

Once the code ended, I told her he didn’t make it. She thanked me for the call. I didn’t know how to respond.

The rest of my day felt like a fog. I wondered if she had anyone to talk to, to cry with or to comfort her.

I still think about that morning and only hope she got the support she needed to grieve for her son.

Pamela Obi
Rome, Georgia

Comments

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related More Voices

Sex Ed

More Voices Themes

Scroll to Top