Hands: Remembering an Unsuccessful Code
As I sit here typing, my hands are shaking. Furthermore, every chart I've signed or every thing I've written looks like an eager three-year-old just got their hands on their very first ink pen.
I just got back from an unsuccessful code.
Doesn't matter how many you do, they all have that mix of adrenaline and nervousness, mixed up in your gut and taking a toll out on your hands. It doesn't help when you've been doing compressions through the whole code either. My hands are mush right now.
The person we just coded happens to be the mother of a young fellow employee at my hospital. This person also happens to be a patient I've seen more than once. It's always rough when something like this happens, and unfortunately, it's like the third or fourth time a relative of a fellow employee has coded (maybe I'm unlucky, maybe it's a more common occurance than I realize). We always feel an obligation to do everything possible to bring people back, but when there's a connection like this, those obligations seem heightened. Maybe compress a little harder, faster...push a few more meds. Often it seems like it's all been for nothing.
When this particular patient was pronounced, amidst the tears and expressions of sorrow to this young girl, we all had to suck it up and move on rather quickly. We see multiple patients, so most times there's not too much down time to mourn/unwind after an event like this. So I headed out to the telemetry floor to start my morning rounds.
Luckily, despite the heaviness one might be carrying after such an event, there's often little moments that happen that help us get through the day.
I walked into the next patient's room.
"Hi, are you ready for your breathing medicine?" I asked.
"Sure."
I started to squirt the Unit Dose DuoNeb into his neb.
"Hey, let me ask you something," he spoke up. "Where do they get those cooks in the cafeteria at? I'm not complaining, and I don't want you to say anything to anyone, but that spaghetti was awful! I couldn't even finish it."
I stood there in mid laugh appologizing for the horrendous food, as the patient was also laughing.
"Let me tell you something, bud," he said. "If the food here was as good as your care, I'd rent a room."
Finally my hands stopped shaking.
-- B.J.