Anna’s day was about to go from bad to worse. Today was her day off from duties at the hospital. Nevertheless, she received an emergency call from the hospital. Leaving her breakfast unfinished, she hurriedly dressed and rushed out the door. She arrived at the hospital where she was presented with a new case file.
A young couple with their first child were sitting in the waiting room. The child, a girl of three months old had developed a fever the day before and as the child’s temperature rose to an alarming level, they had brought her to the hospital during the night. The attending physician examined the child and with great reluctance had informed the parents of the serious nature of the sickness.
Now that Anna was here, the case would be hers. She hurriedly studied the facts of the case and summoned the nurse who had assisted the previous doctor in examining the child.
“It’s hopeless, Doctor,” the nurse sighed. “Doctor Throckmorton, and you know how good a doctor he is, feels that the condition is hopeless. He has gone off shift but if you like, I can summon him to talk to you and give you his opinion.”
“That won’t be necessary right now, Agnes,” Anna replied. “I’ll go have a look myself. Come with me.” She arose from her desk and with the patient files in hand, and Agnes tagging behind, she walked quickly to the Infant Critical Care Unit.
It did not take her long to reach the same conclusion as the previous physician. The child was dying. She left the bedside and hurried to the waiting room down the hall where sat a young man and woman. There was no one else in the room at that time so she knew…
The woman looked to be about twenty-two. With a pale complexion now even whiter than was healthy, she stared ahead with hollow eyes, the likes of which Anna had seen before and they always spoke the same message.
The young mother was beyond the ability to shed tears and that was the state of mind, Anna in her professional experience saw, and it cut her deeply in her heart. All of the tears the young mother was to shed, she already had shed. She had no more to shed.
The young man, obviously the father, had a frightened look on his face which caused his black eyes to dart about the room, seeing things which only his tormented mind could see.
Anna ordered the nurse to go and find two comfortable chairs to put by the bedside of the child. She would not have the parents isolated from their dying child. Knowing in her own heart and out of her own professional experience and knowledge that mere hours remained, she wanted them to be by the bedside of their child and nowhere else.
She introduced herself to the two and seeing the look of pleading in the mother’s eyes, begging her as a physician to save her daughter’s life, Anna had to call upon the inner strength such occasions in the past had built into her. Her only recourse was to assure the mother that “we’re doing all we can do. It is now up to God.”
With the parents now in the room with their child, where they would remain until either a miracle of Divine Providence came, or the child would be forever relieved of this world’s sorrows and pain. In the meantime, Anna would devote all of her time and skills to working what magic she could weakly call upon through administered medicines and hope for what she knew was no hope at all. But she owed to them her best and that is all that she could give. And she gave it.
It was of no avail for four hours later, haggard and drained of physical and emotional strength, having called upon others more expert than herself, and trying everything the medical school had taught her and what she had learned since, she was in the room when the baby breathed its last. Still, the mother could not cry. She could only sit with a blank stare on her face while her husband did break down into sobs of heartbreak.
Anna sat with them for the space of a half hour more and taking the mother’s hands in hers, she voiced a prayer for them for peace and comfort. Where the child’s mother could not cry, Anna shed tears enough for both as the other one rested her head in silence on the shoulder of the doctor who could do nothing to save her child.
No comments:
Post a Comment