Trial by Fire

Yes indeed the day bed looked good to me. But it was only good to me for about an hour. Then, my pager went off. Uh-oh. I have to do something now. I have responsibilities. They have paged me. I return the page and the lady on the other end of the phone says calmly, "Could you please come up to Dialysis on 9. We're in a Code Blue. Thank you." (Code Blue is hospital lingo for Cardiac and Respiratory Arrest.) Holy Cow!! I collect myself, say the breath prayer, get my clipboard and head on up. I get to the 9th floor and look up and down it. Seeing nothing unusual, I proceed down the hall, wondering if I'll be able to tell where the Code is. I get to the end of the hallway and into the actual dialysis unit. Yep. There it is, no mistake about it! About 25 doctors are gathered around a patient's bed in the corner all doing different things and giving and receiving orders. I walk in calmly and a nurse approaches me. She says, "Good. Pastoral Care. Thank you for coming, the daughter is over there with the Doctor," pointing out the pair. Ok, they recognize and accept my presence; that is a good start. I walk over to the doctor and the patient's daughter. She is obviously very upset and this was an unexpected turn during a routine procedure. The doctor is explaining to her the possibilities of what happened and what the Code team is actually doing. I introduce myself and she seems to accept me, though is (properly) more interested in what the doctor has to say. At this time, my colleague, the other Ryan, shows up and introduces himself. The doctor leaves and we chat with the daughter, who we'll here call Sue. Sue is not emotional at all, but is angry and irritated at the hospital. Some people manifest their grief this way. The Code team is not having much luck. I leave the daughter with my partner and go into the room to see if I can get some information. "Clear!" Zzzzt! Oh wow, they are actually doing that! I learn from listening in that the team is not having much luck, that there is no pulse of the patient's own, and that he is unresponsive to the injections. Doesn't look good. I return with this assessment to Sue, careful to phrase my remarks so that it does not appear as if I am giving medical information. ("The person is critical" vs. "The person has gone into ventricular fibrillation and arrest") Sue reacts without much emotion, just nods. My partner has ascertained that Sue has called family members and that they are on their way. He then takes Sue to a consultation room while I go downstairs to greet the family members. At this time, they have temporarily stabilized the patient and are going to move him into CICU, Cardiac Intensive Care Unit. When the siblings arrive, I introduce myself and we head upstairs. When we get to the floor, I tell another daughter that I'm going to take her to see her father, but that he is not doing well, is in critical condition, has ben intubated, which means he's got a tube sticking out of his mouth helping him breathe (she began to be emotional at this point), and will be attached to a lot of machines. SHe takes one peek in the room and decides she can't see that, so I take her to the consultation room. Long story short, my partner and I remained there for some time and ministered to the family to the best of our ability and given the fact they didn't want to pray. We then gave them our pager numbers and said we were going to go, but that they could page us at any time. For the rest of the afternoon I did not hear back from them and have no idea how the patient is doing. It appears that if he pulls through, it will only be temporary. He was very old after all and had a number of other health problems.

Also, by way of update, I did not hear back about the 4 year old girl. So, I will keep asking for your prayers for these and all patients.

-R