One Man

shannonFNP, BSN, MSN, RN

I was one in a crowded room of the receiving team of nurses that lifted this man: a father, a grandfather off the golden Stryker that carried him from this fateful father's day into the emergency room. He was still dressed to fit the occasion: a polo tee, khaki shorts, and some tennis shoes. I imagined the man to be throwing a football with his grandson, or watching sports with his son when his heart chose this day, of all days to strike.

I watched him, his chest moving up and down during half-hearted compressions that came second to a conversation about how the paramedic's wife was doing these days.

"Breathe," I ordered him, "not today, please not today. Your family, I know they need you." I saw my grandfather in him, I saw my aging father in him. I saw a family man and I just wanted him to turn from the light he was walking and hear me. If I want it bad enough, if I hurt for him hard enough, he will understand.

The room began to darken, and the corner I was in waiting for commands was closing in on me. I felt my arteries pulsating throughout my body. I wanted to cry, scream at everyone to just try harder.

I'm a nurse technician, always the one to call if you need your morning coffee or your patient needs an IV, foley, and transport. Yet during a code, I fall back to the corner, invisible.

I came out from where I was standing, insisted to relieve the nurse doing compressions. I pushed harder, faster with everything that was in me. I denied relief from others, I felt again that if I put everything I had into him, he'd regain a pulse and wake. We'd be taking him to ICU where he'd recover and go home.

It never happened. He was there lifeless as the attending called it. I waited with two other nurses as they attempted an asystole strip. Every time a beat would appear just as they were printing. I know it was the meds, but I still could not give up the idea that he would show me a miracle.

I have seen life taken away, and life given. I have seen those live that defeated the odds. But at this moment, the miracles and the inspiration that I've experienced in clinicals and on-the-job seemed to fade away. I fought everything I had for this man. So, there is the glorified version of the nurse, "we save lives." And I love that part of my job. But I'm still learning how to accept the lives we can't save.

We as nurses are not mechanical machines that can turn the world off its axis. We can treat the patient as they are, a husband or father, but not change their fate. I just hope that this experience, watching a room of distracted individuals treat this patient that could have been my own grandfather will keep my path unchanged by what else is going on in the world. Nothing matters but the patient, and we need to remind ourselves, whether seasoned or new nurses.

One Man

About shannonFNP, BSN, MSN, RN

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