Early morning—uptown 6 train. In my blue scrubs, I watch the couple sitting across from me. I study how their fingers intertwine, how her face lies cradled in the crook of his neck. They trade smiles and sweet nothings.
Two hours later, I’m in the ICU. I read the blood pressure monitor: “61/36.” Then, “60/37.” In med school, we’d been taught to answer the question “sick or not sick?” and, despite my status as a medical student, I know enough to sense that this is an emergency. The last time I saw a number like this, it was summertime. I heard alarm bells sound off from countless places—the patient’s room, the telemetry monitor in the hall, alerts on watches and workstations. An invisible signal shot around the hospital like an electric shock. A code was called over the intercom, rumbling through the rafters, echoing through the very floor. Shoes sprung into action. Fifteen sets of scrubs crowded into the room: crash cart, A-line, ultrasound, X-ray, IV bags, airway adjunct, “access, access, we need access,” laryngoscope, bag-valve mask. A mouth shoved open, wide. Ketamine, fentanyl, pushed, eyes numbed. Compressions, cycled. Defibrillated, clear. The air hung sticky with hot breath. A stethoscope clattered to the ground.
Everyone in that room knew what was at stake, and they were ready to make as much noise as possible to fight it off.
But seeing 61/36 on the young woman’s monitor, I hear none of that. Only the ventilator, its gentle rumbles muffled behind the hospital room’s glass door, makes any noise. She would’ve looked like she were sleeping, if not for her half-lidded eyes, held barely open as if falling asleep. The pressors have been capped, a resident tells me. I take a beat before I piece together what that means. No longer are we trying to pull her back. The alarms have been silenced. There will be no more rapid responses, no frantic footsteps. We are just slowing her fall, keeping her in a holding pattern until her heart peters out.
And all the while, behind the glass door I see a man sitting silent. I watch him from afar. He wears a Knicks cap and crisp sneakers. I briefly wonder how he picked those clothes, whether he knows that’s what he will be wearing when he sees his wife die. Every so often, he stands up, walks over to her bedside with a handkerchief, slowly wipes off her forehead, and slumps back down into his seat. He adjusts his cap. He wrings his hands. Has another sip of his coffee. Then, slowly, as if carrying the earth on his shoulders, he rises to his feet, and wipes her forehead again. Sit, sip. Stand up, hold her hand a little longer this time, sit. I’m baffled. Why is everyone so quiet—where is the attending, the pressors, the pushing and the shoving? Where is all the noise? Why is it so quiet as he puts his head into his hands?
That evening in the station, the train is louder than it has any right to be, screeching clumsily down the 77th Street platform. Like a child, I raise my hands to cover my ears, and then I catch it—a glimpse of a man sitting alone on the platform opposite. Clean sneakers, Knicks cap. Coffee cup in hand. Going home alone. I almost cry out. I saw you through the window, I want to say. I saw how you cared for her.
But it isn’t him. I cover my ears and look away.
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