Singular Intimacies by Danielle Ofri

Author:Danielle Ofri [Ofri, Danielle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-8070-9746-5
Publisher: Beacon Press
Published: 2003-06-01T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

Time of Death: 3:27 A.M.

The day we die

the wind comes down

to take away

our footprints.

Song of the Southern Bushmen

THE PATIENT ARRIVED in the ER with a ruptured aorta from a car accident. The doctor jumped onto the stretcher and reached into the wound to grab the hemorrhaging vessel. Seconds later the patient was whisked off to surgery, with the doctor still straddling him upon the stretcher, clamping the aorta with his bare hand.

“Really, Rachel,” I said, “this is ridiculous. This type of stuff doesn’t happen in real life. First of all, he’d be wearing gloves. Second of all, no resident looks that attractive after twenty hours of working in the hospital.”

The television show took place in an urban emergency room that was a bit reminiscent of Bellevue, except that the staff members were better coifed and had enough free time for multiple romantic involvements. There was definitely an air of realism, however, in the pace and the grittiness. It was entertaining and also gave my friends and family a taste of my life in the hospital.

When things were slow I would watch the show on the hospital TV. If my beeper was quiet I would telephone Rachel and provide live medical commentary on the action. It was our Thursday-night ritual.

“Can you come see Mr. Teitelbaum?” A nurse’s voice invaded my sleep. I was working overnight and had managed to fall asleep for a few hours. “He’s just not looking so hot,” she continued. “Could you just swing by and take a look?” Mumbling something in reply, I scraped my body out of bed, feet fumbling into my hospital clogs. I trudged over to the ward with the wooden clogs clomping, as it required too much energy to actually lift my feet off the ground.

Mr. Teitelbaum was an elderly gentleman sitting in a chair by the nurses’ station—the spot always reserved for the slightly demented patients who’d “sundown” and become agitated at night. His hospital-issue pajamas drooped off his slight shoulders. A makeshift seatbelt constructed from a bedsheet pinned his frail body upright. His wizened face bobbed gently to the right.

As I approached him, one of the nurses tore off the bedsheet, yelling, “He’s coding! He’s coding! Call a code!” I got there just as they were tossing Mr. Teitelbaum onto a bed that had been wheeled into the hallway. He lay diagonally across the bed, a slip of a human body enmeshed in a heap of crisp white hospital sheets. “He’s coding,” the nurse yelled again.

The fatigue evaporated from my body with the sting of a plunge into ice water. “He’s coding,” echoed in my head—he’s dying, right here in front of me. There were no other doctors around, just me. “He’s coding,”—my mind froze onto that thought, unable to process what to do next. But luckily my body was able to react of its own accord and it leaped onto the bed and started doing CPR.

Elbows straight, fingers interlocked—press, release, press, release. Kneeling beside him, the weight of my whole body converged and was propelled from my shoulders through to my arms onto his body.

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