52 Minutes

The doctor arrived to join the group of seven that had been waiting around the bed for the inevitable to begin. The nurse would have included herself among the count but the sound of the chatter, the machines, and the monitor were too loud, so she had to step away. Not to mention her mask. She explained the situation to the family on the other end of the call desperately hoping they would overturn their decision to resuscitate him if it was necessary.

She said her piece and waited.

As soon as it was clear the answer was not what she was hoping for, she rejoined the group but stayed on the phone to let the appointed representative of the family say what he wanted. Her attention was split. Her eyes darted back and forth from the monitor that continued to chip away at hope and the individual who gathered their now group of nine to the bed. His skin was turning grey, his eyes were crusted from extended time under sedation, and his mouth was hanging open to allow space for the tube that kept him alive to this point. A mess of tubing that ran from his arm, through a monstrous set up of pumps, and finally to different bags that contained complex formulations that placated death's approach, but they all knew it was simply a matter of time.

The numbers on the monitor continued to fall. The nurse made her way closer to the pumps to see if there anymore changes she could make to buy more time to sell her case to the family. Nothing. The doctor asked the nurse to check the for a pulse. She switched the phone to her other hand. It was there, but it was weak. She held the phone to her ear and shifted her focus back to the voice on the other end offering his words of assurance that his father would come back to them and it will be just like before, but the nurse could not help but think that this man would never be the same again. She could not shake the inescapable reality that though every fiber over her being wanted the son's reality to be true exactly as he described it, it simply would not.

Just as the nurse began to slip away to take one more attempt at reasoning with the family, the alarms on the monitor went from a simple chime to a frantic warning signal. The doctor called for a pulse check. There was none. A male nurse began compressions. Despite all the sounds around that bed of the pumps, the monitor, the ventilator, the voices of the congregation, or even the voices of the family in her ear, nothing was more clear than the sound of ribs breaking with he first couple compressions. She notified the family. Medications were being given on strict time intervals followed by short pauses only to check if a pulse had reinitiated. With each failure to feel the heart working, the cycle continued. Two-minute intervals never felt so long.

She continued to keep family aware of the events as best as she could in the hopes that she would hear three simple words," Let him go". They persisted. This entire production of events continued for another six to eight minutes before an aide was able to find a pulse.

The nurse was torn. At her core she was elated that the team was able to bring this patient back from death, but the thought was haunted by the sinister idea of what kind of life this man would have if he ever made it back. She became a nurse to save lives and help people like the man in front of her and the family on the phone, so why was the thought of this man surviving paralyzing her.

She did not have much time to search her soul for answers. She looked at the monitor and knew that round two was going to begin. Fortunately, the rest of the team did not have a chance to get far, and they began preparations for the second assault. The nurse once again, made her pitch to the family, even allowing the doctor an opportunity to help them realize what each member of team already knew. The family pushed on.

Shortly after the phone was given back to the nurse, the time had come. the process began anew.

The cycle repeated itself five times that night. Loss of pulse, start CPR, give medications, pausing to check, eventual return, and eventual decline. It was not until the entire process was completed five times that the family decided that it was time to stop.

The team stopped and next phase began with the old man. Family had their time to say their last words to him over the phone, the bay was cleaned and different tubes and wires were disconnected from his now lifeless body, and the nurse was finally released from the paralyzing grip of her imaginings. It was over. The man who endured can finally rest.

The nurse finally sat down and was able to begin her charting on the events that had just transpired. She perused the notes a member of the team took and noted the total time. fifty-two minutes.

She glanced at her watch.

Only ten more hours to go.