DOCTOR COMIC - PART 6

Her name was the eponym for pain, in another language of course, and hereby HIPAA compliantly introduced to you, dear reader. She didn’t feel like eating before the increasing lethargy sent her off to our ER where she coded for an unspecified amount of time and came back to life miraculously with not even a single rib broken from chest compression. As a result, multiple organs within her cachectic body went on a coordinated strike and demanded further negotiation with life and death in the ICU.

The effort to wean her off the ventilator was eventful with multiple attempts of breathing tube self-removal requiring a multitude of sedation and complicated adjustment. Not a sigh of relief was there when the drama of the ventilator machine completed and she could breathe on her own from a nasal cannula, since the oxygen in her blood quickly dropped to an alarmingly low level whenever she yanked the oxygen off and hoarsely declared that she wanted to jump off a bridge.

So essentially, she was dependent on the nasal cannula and she became extra saucy whenever her oxygen turned low with her frequent dislodging of the device. Provided that she had the oxygen flowing at above 6 liter a minute, she would be more reasonable; however, she remained as feisty as possible. We had to put padded mittens on her hands to prevent her from digging into her thighs out of frustration since the wrist restraint stopped her from removing the cannula. Whenever I tried to put the mittens back after her uncanny successes to pull them off, I noticed her fingernails with chipped polish in the shade of red wine imprinting angry indentation over the thin translucence of her bony palms.

Chinese character for Pain

On her worse days, she kicked the internal medicine attending and punched the junior resident, albeit unsuccessfully with both actions due to poor coordination and restraint. Out of the blue, she aimed and spat the antipsychotic pill at the nurse. As the bacterial strain that colonized her respiratory tract was resistant to a certain antibiotic, the spitting was effectively considered biological weapon. Hence, I was always on vigilance during my encounters with her. I gowned and masked myself up per protocol, greeted her on my own morning round, and asked her how she was feeling and whether she was looking forward to having breakfast. A succinct but loud “Fuck off!” was all I got in return. Normally, I could calm her down by holding her hand (with gloves) and telling her that her son was on his way to see her soon; it seemed to have no effect on her that day. “She also called me an ugly bitch earlier,” her nurse shrugged and walked off.

A few days before her transfer to the regular floor, she slowly but deliberately leaned forward and dropped her head down onto my hand when I was holding hers. My flight and fight response instantly kicked on the high gear, as my instinct alerted me that this woman was about to bite me. I was on the verge of pulling back when she kissed my hand, which completely caught me off guard. As she leaned back onto her bed, a thin smile that I didn’t often see deepened the wasting of her temples and she appeared strangely more peaceful than usual. It took me more time to explain to her family that she would never return to her physical baseline prior to this admission, and the conversation about hospice became more challenging to convey. Maybe working the ICU in late December amidst the holiday made me sentimental. “How am I supposed to tell my kids that their grandma is not coming home?” her tearful daughter-in-law asked, I didn’t know how to answer.

When she was transferred out, I stopped by her floor periodically to check up on her even though my duties for her ended the moment she left the ICU. She was the only woman in my life who cursed me the day before then kissed me some days after as if nothing ever happened. Maybe there was another one, but that story is for another time.