RE-TWEET IT!
Tweet
Just an evening earlier, the little girl was prancing around corridors, dropping in on other patients on the ward, running up and down our hospital ramp. She waved as I was leaving after my rounds.
I smiled back and called out, “Are you ready for your operation tomorrow?”
“Yes, I am” she replied, gaily.
Now, she was on the operation table.
And she was about to die!
The scariest, most tense moments in a cardiac O.R. come without any warning, at a time one least expects it.
At two-thirty that afternoon, the operation began. Barely ten minutes later, it almost ended.
“Scalpel.”
The surgeon made his incision. I mopped the thin streak of blood away, as he deepened the cut. Dissected the tissue at the root of her neck, before using an electric saw to open the breastbone.
Suddenly… disaster!
It happened within seconds.
A gush of blood welled up from within, pouring out of her chest, soaking swabs in an instant.
“Pressure’s dropping. Sixty… Thirty…”
The anesthesiologist’s voice was tinged with panic.
Trained professionals ramped up their alertness levels to “emergency” status.
Adrenaline surged. My heart raced. All senses peaked. My attention was now completely focused on that tiny space, my entire universe condensed down to the narrow confines of the surgical field.
Concentration was intense, total. Reflexes honed by years of training came into action. There was no time to think, plan and strategize – just react.
“Gauze.”
A finger plugged the hole in a major vein which was still draining the little girl’s life blood out of her.
A quick flurry of movements followed, as an expert team worked in controlled haste, desperately trying to cling on to a life that was rapidly slipping away.
“Saw, please. Hurry!”
I cracked open the chest within seconds.
“Clamps.”
Snap.
Snap.
Two of them went over the bleeding vessels.
“Pressure’s coming up. Forty… Sixty… Eighty, now.”
The voice from the other side of the screen sounded calmer, more in control.
“Ok, we have the bleeder.”
No words could sound sweeter at that moment.
It would be hours longer before we shift the little girl out of the theater, her congenital heart defect repaired. But they would slip by in a metaphoric fleeting moment, as contrasted against the long years we lived through in those terrifying three minutes at the beginning.
And a deeper philosophical question comes once more to the top of my mind.
“Why do we plan and scheme, worry and fret, struggle and agonize, when literally everything can be wiped away in a moment?”
Our very existence is fragile. It hinges on such thin threads. Acknowledging, accepting and adapting to that reality can infinitely enhance our lives – and give us a new, deep gratitude for everything that is, has been and could be.
As I gaze at the little girl’s smiling face the next morning, I’m amazed at another thing, too.
She didn’t even know all that had happened!
Do we?
Comments on this entry are closed.