By Tuhina Raman
The first thing he recalled on that fateful day that changed his life is the blinding white. The walls, the lights, the ventilator even the doctor’s coats. The memories came thick and fast. His parent’s face looming over the bed, the hands of the staff that wiped him down and changed his gown, the hum of the ventilator circuits, the poking and prodding of catheters and tubes, the alarms of the monitors and the doors of ICU bed 15 opening and closing with the myriad of staff walking in and out at all hours of the day and night. He remembered the inability to speak on the ventilator, the coughing, the endless fatigue and bleary sleep. He also remembered leaving the hospital eventually with his family in tow and a big box of gift-wrapped cookies and a bunch of cards. He was told that an innocuous viral infection had sparked a rip-roaring pneumonia and landed him in the hospital. Go figure. He had missed a full month of school. He had missed his birthday. He had missed the football camp qualifier – that’s what hurt the most.
“There went that career,” he thought wryly. “Look at where I find myself these days” he says to nobody in particular. It’s the middle of the day and quiet. Visiting hours are over. He can take his time. He pauses meditatively as he always does outside ICU room 15 collecting his thoughts. He enters to hook the IV bag on the metal stand. Methodically he cleans the catheter at the patients neck with an alcohol wipe and connects the IV bag. He squeezes it and watches it drip for a few seconds. Good flow. The boy is sedated and doesn’t budge. He looks comfortable and his vital signs are stable. He smiles down at him and involuntarily brushes the hair off his forehead. Sighing, he turns towards the computer in the corner of the room. He types quickly. The screen flickers on bright and white “Welcome Nurse Donovan”.
Tuhina Raman, M.D., is a pulmonary critical care physician in Delaware. She has her fiction published previously in Hektoen international, Intima and other online publications. She lives in Media Pennsylvania with her two children and a loving chocolate Labrador puppy. She enjoys traveling and reading in her spare time .