Hope Behind A Mask

By Gilby Joseph George

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.

It was 7:30 p.m., way beyond my working hours. I was waiting for the next person to take over the toil. Cosying myself on the creaking aged armchair, which had lived beyond my time, pondering to myself as to why I had the busiest shifts.

My colleague came in grinning as if to compensate for my stolen time of leisure. After our handover, I was packing up hesitantly to run away from this laborious day.

As I was at the edge of unwinding myself, a trolley moved in carrying a body whose arm was blandly swaying, another 'brought dead' I had thought. "Room 20" was in chaos, with bystanders and patients stringently demanding that they needed to be attended to first. I empathised with my partner's fate tonight and thought I would give a hand and see this patient off.

A young male, around his late twenties, was lifelessly staring back at my flashlight with huge dilated pupils whose hollow depths were stroking the dark reality of death. Sans pulse, sans breath, and with cyanosed lips that blew out life long ago, with ligature marks around his neck bracketing the classical sign of hanging.

The relatives told us that it had already been around half an hour since he was found hung in his room after he had a dispute with his wife, making it even more difficult to bring him back to life. At this point, the head nurse suggested we take an ECG and declare his death.

After giving the patient a neck collar and securing his airway, I decided to start the CPR even though there was not much hope, and what followed was one of the best chest compressions I've ever given to date, venting out all my inner fumes to a particular spot on the chest and feeling it bounce back in recoil with each compression. We took turns, drenched in perspiration, pushing ourselves against the clock.

At times, I feel the only physical activity we get to expend our calories is the strenuous exercise of performing CPR. It had been almost half an hour. I raised my eyes towards the ceiling, trying to penetrate through and look to the heavens beyond to find an answer. The stubs of sweat over my brow found their way into my eyes, yielding salty tears. My head began to feel light as I ordered the last shot of adrenaline. My hands started to itch from the powdered gloves, then slowly ceased to function... as I felt a small thump.

Well, at this point, anyone would hallucinate, and it's been a long, tiring day. But I felt the beat again and again in a continuous loop. In complete disbelief, I stopped the compressions and stepped down. I placed my stethoscope over the left chest, and then, like an old rusted motor regaining its zest, I heard the heart roaring in full fledge. Smiling through our eyes, we looked at each other, nodding in appreciation.

Not wasting time, I went over to his head and thrust the laryngoscope in, making sure his c-spine was secured. Now all I had to do was find the vocal cords and slide the tube in. The clotted blood and the swollen cords made it hard. I found the window to his pipe after pushing past the hurdles and intubated the patient. After that, we further referred him for a neurological consult. Even though the chances of him coming back from his vegetative state were next to impossible, I was happy for my selfish reasons to be a small part of saving his life.

In the end, the immense satisfaction with which we feed our empty pots is what most of us have left to look forward to.

By Gilby Joseph George