Scars...

I am currently on my cardiology rotation & today I encountered a patient situation that nearly brought tears to my eyes. This patient made me wonder how people can cope with some of the horrific events that they are faced with in their lives & if they ever really heal from such painful incidents. This caused me to reflect upon some of the occurrences in my own life that have caused emotional distress so severe that I wondered if I would ever be able to go on. The fact that I am here now blogging about this topic, made me realize that every person deals with disaster, loss, & pain in their own way & that the healing process from such events is very similar to the process that the body goes through after injury; once damage has been done, the body will never be the same &  every assault leaves a permanent scar.

Code Blue Baby

Last week I was sitting having lunch with a nurse practitioner, when over the intercom we heard "code blue, L & D." Since this is a cardiology rotation, I must attend every code while I am at the hospital. So, we both jumped up & ran to the elevator to join the crowd of people rushing to the 3rd floor. We both looked at each other, sighed & said, "I really hope it isn't a baby." We both have young children at home & both had a difficult time conceiving those children, so seeing sick or dying babies is not something that either one of us can handle very well. 

When we got off of the elevator, along with the 12 other medical professionals who were headed in to help, we heard the nurse announce "it's the baby, it wasn't breathing when they pulled it out." Now, I am not usually one who scares easily & I have never refused to participate in anything medicine wise that I was allowed to, but this time it was different. I looked around the small ward & saw 2 young girls sobbing, 5 doctors suiting & scrubbing up, nurses running around frantic & I slowed down, looked at the cardiologist that I am working with & asked if there was any way I could be excused from participating in this code. Without hesitation he kindly replied "this isn't the case for either one of you; please go round on the other patients." So, the nurse practitioner & I looked at each other and quickly headed for the door before he could change his mind. We went on with the rest of our day like it had never happened. I guess that was our way of coping with the fact that some mother, just like ourselves, was going through a hell that neither one of us would ever want to imagine.

There was no mention about this baby again until today when we found out that they are working on pronouncing the newborn brain dead so that they can harvest it's organs for transplantation. When I heard this I felt ill & I started to wonder how the poor mother would ever recover from such a horrible event. Her pregnancy had been completely normal, she was young & healthy, this was her 1st child & her entire family had rushed to the hospital to be there when the baby arrived. Now, 1 week later, there is an empty nursery, fully of clothes, & a mother who will have to bury her first born child before he/she could ever even leave the hospital. 

I don't know why this case bothers me so much. I have seen people die before; I was standing right there when my own Grandmother took her final breath 2 years ago & I have been present when time of death has been called many times since then. I have even been doing CPR or intubating patients when the time came for intervention to stop. Don't get me wrong, it bothers me when people die, but for some reason it REALLY gets to me when it is a child or a baby. Most of the people I have worked with who have passed away had all had a life, maybe not the life they had planned or wanted, but they had lived. This poor little baby never even took it's 1st breath. Why would a woman have to go through the pain of carrying a baby to term only for it to die upon delivery, without ever having any life at all?

I discussed this with one of my closest friends & she informed me that it bothered her more when it was an adult who passed on; especially if it was a mother with young children. Apparently she had gone through some personal event in which a young woman died shortly after giving birth. After a bit of discussion, she said that she thought that the reason that we felt so differently about this was that she was able to get pregnant very easily & had never had a sick child, while I had a horrible time getting pregnant (that's a whole different story to blog about later) & spent the 1st month of my kids life in the NICU. So, I guess that the way we feel about the death of our patients is effected by the scars that we have collected from our own personal assaults.

This was my little Benjamin, the 1st time I saw him. I cannot begin to explain the pain of not being able to hold your newborn baby, or the horrible fear that Brian & I endured for the 1st month of this little guy's life. He was born at 33 weeks, unable to breath without assistance, weighing 5lbs 3oz. I wasn't able to hold him until he was 3 days old. There were multiple events that occurred over the first few weeks in which we were forced to question his survival.

This is not how I imagined that his first baby pictures would look. I had always pictured a room full of balloons & flowers & all of my closest family & friends waiting to greet us and celebrate the arrival of the twins. They weren't able to meet any of their extended family or friends for a long 6 weeks.

This is Molly, during her "car-seat challenge," a test that all premies must undergo before they are allowed to leave the hospital. She was 3 weeks old & weighed a whopping 4lbs. When we bought these car seats I thought that their 1st use would be to take babies home in. We didn't take these guys home for another 9 days!

* **The pictures of the twins are just a few of many that were taken during our stay in the NICU. At the time, I was so worried about the health of my babies that I didn't realize how much that month would effect me later on in life. While we were there, I saw some horrible things. I saw a set of twins born at 27 weeks, who were being stabilized to transfer to another hospital; you could see through their skin. I saw a woman come to visit her newborn who had been in a car accident the night before. She was due to deliver twins, but one baby was crushed in her pelvis on impact. I saw another young woman stand by an incubator while the machines that were helping her baby survive were turned off. Those were just 3 of the worst cases that I can remember. As I look back on these events, I realize that each & every one of them has changed me in some way. I guess that you could say that these events have become permanent scars, that will forever influence the way that I view the world & react to other events that I encounter.....

***They now believe that the baby discussed in this blog may have had Osteogenesis Imperfecta, a genetic disorder that causes extremely fragile bones. For more information, & ways to help families effected by OI visit: Osteogenesis Imperfecta Foundation