Blurp-blurp. Blurp-blurp. The submarine sonar sound of my pager swims in my ears through the thick darkness. I page the number.
"Trauma team activation. Multiple stabbings."
Then I'm in the trauma room, everything is happening through a fog. Nurses, paremedics and the emergency doctor are there but no one is doing anything. Blood everywhere. Then somehow its me, gasping for breath, blood coming from the side of my chest, standing there bent over.
The scar on my forehead burns as I'm ordering two large bore IVs, bolus 2 litres, CBC, type and screen for the trauma patient. The image in my head (as pain sears through the scar on my forehead) is of a fetal heart rate tracing, plunging lower and lower, the sound of the doppler pounding out the heart rate getting slower and slower. Wawumph, wawumph . . . wawumph. Nobody is doing anything about it. I hear myself yelling at the shock of no one rushing the woman to the operating room as the baby's heart rate drops. And then I'm running as if through wet cement, the air thicker than molasses, trying to get to the labour and delivery ward in time to save the baby. The elevators are blocked by scrawny African teenage boys with AK-47s, their eyes dead, their voices threaten me as I'm yelling, desperate to get upstairs. I can't control my body's movements. Then my surrounding are no longer the hospital halls but a war zone in Sierra Leone. A young boy with his machine gun hanging down his back pushes a wheelbarrow through tall grass in front of him piled with dead bodies. Flies. Heat. Fear.
Blurp-blurp. Blurp-blurp.
I wake with a start, my heart racing, full of fear, clammy with sweat. The dim shapes of the call room come into focus.
"Mrs. K hasn't peed for 6 hours."
Clearly I'm going nuts. Surgery must be stressing me out. That and I'm reading too much Harry Potter. I'm also reading "A long way gone: memoirs of a boy soldier". Vivid and moving. Maybe too vivid for me these days.
P.S. I don't actually have a scar on my forehead the connects me directly to labour and delivery and the mind of Voldemort . . . I don't think.
5 comments:
I always knew you were a little nutty!
I think you better get some sleep... and maybe read Anne of Green Gables...Mum
ok, i think this is why i read non-fantasy novels before i go to bed. something about clever people solving non-gruesome mysteries, or travels through peaceful countries. it puts you to sleep and doesn't give you nightmares. you should try it.
also, aren't you a little tempted when called upon re. non-peeing patients to point out to the nurse that you haven't peed in 6 hours either? i am...
Hi SHeona, just checked out your blog - great to see your thoughts from way over there in Vancouver! THanks for checking out my news and for your message. Interesting where life takes us...
Laura
ps. I brought Anne of Green Gables to Rwanda this time - a nice escape!
"Dreaming permits each and every one of us to be quietly and safely insane every night of our lives."
Post a Comment