She Made Up Her Mind

It Was Time To GO...

As I walked hurriedly into the ER for the night shift, I noticed two ambulances unloading and a long line of people waiting who had come by private vehicle. I crossed my fingers in my mind as I walked through and headed for the breakroom to my locker. Just under my breath, I said, "please let this be a night with my favorite crew”. I looked up to see Lisa, Rod, Jim, and Jami so I knew everything was going to be alright. I had a full day and never slowed for a nap, but I knew I could tough it through this night shift, I had done it before.

Good coffee and this great crew was all I needed.

There was a variety of cases from one end of the spectrum to the other that evening. We had a man who nearly severed two fingers on a lawn mower blade and a woman who somehow caught her fingers in her dishwasher drain, they looked pretty gnarly. Then a teenaged boy came in with a bug in his ear. We get the “bug in the ear” patients pretty regularly and most people are a bit antsy (I can only imagine having something alive crawling around in your ear!). The guy was a basket case, he was screaming, “Get it out!” “Get it out now!” as he paced back and forth. He said, “I can’t take it anymore, help me!”

I was just as relieved as the patient was when the doctor finally pulled that bug out. Once the bug was dead and out of his ear, this person turned into the nicest guy you could ever hope to meet. It turns out the bug that was in his ear wasn’t just frantically crawling around like most, this bug was pinching and biting him the whole time. I felt so creeped out about that, it made me want to put cotton in my ears to keep anything from entering.

About 4 hours into the shift, things had calmed down a little and we got an ambulance call that advised they were on their way with a female age 25, unresponsive. When she arrived, all eyes were on her. They put her in one of the open bays, room 5, and began to take report from the paramedics. 

The story was one of the saddest ones I had heard. This beautiful young woman had attempted suicide. I will always remember her with her long black ponytail hanging off the side of her gurney and her pale white skin. She had beautifully manicured nails and she was lying there motionless. She was taking very shallow breaths.

She had left a suicide note on her night table. 

She missed a appointment with her mother for lunch and that was not like her all. Her mother drove to her house that evening, used her key to go in and found her slumped over across her bed. Beside her was an empty medicine bottle and a half empty diet coke. 
At the hospital, her mother never left her bedside and was eager to tell what happened.

She had called 911 and the paramedics arrived and transported them to our ER.

I remember the irony of it all as I looked over at the elderly lady in the next bed, who was suffering from heart problems and COPD (a serious respiratory problem). She was laying there fighting with all she had inside just to live. Life was slipping from her but she was holding on with her fingernails just for one more day or one more hour.

Yet, only a few feet away from her, lay this 25 year old, healthy, young woman who chose to end her life. She had beauty, health and a career, yet life meant nothing to her at the moment she made that horrible decision to throw it all away.

Sometimes, life is so complicated and often seems unfair. As I watched these two ladies lying side by side on gurneys; one who hours ago had a lifetime ahead of her, and the other an elderly lady who had lived many years but fought so hard to make it a little longer, it seemed so heartbreaking as I knew they would both face death very soon.

Within a short while the young patient was transferred to ICU for further care, but she died about 24 hours later. The look in her mother’s eyes that night she arrived in the ER, drove right through me and touched my heart so deeply, I can feel it right now as I type this story.  

Our elderly patient passed away a few hours earlier than the suicide patient. They faced death together and even though I knew neither of them I felt the deep sadness of it all.