Bite Shift

56

I decided that my best course of action was to stay very busy. I asked Monica to check on 501 and make sure the hanging blood was running. I promised to get the second unit before I left so she wouldn't have to see Rhys. I was happy to run that errand for her if she kept me away from the blood transfusion. I made a mental note to ask Alex how to overcome the blood lust when at the hospital. I could not fathom a life where I was not a nurse but I also couldn't "vamp out" every time I was around blood.

For those of you that are not nurses, we are around blood a lot. I don't think I have gone a whole week, in ten years, without seeing, drawing, hanging or talking about the red stuff. I once had a patient who rang the call bell and asked me to come to the bathroom. When I walked in it looked like a horror movie. There was blood filling the toilet, in pools on the floor and splashed on the walls. Turns out, she had a massive GI bleed and had to be rushed up to the unit. So, yeah. If I can't control myself around blood, I might as well turn in my scrubs and badge.

It was roughly an hour before I would have to hit the road. I had finished up counting the narcs, interpreting the rhythm strip of anyone who was on a monitor, filed away any paperwork from the morning shift, checked on every patient and updated the white board for the morning assignments. I was picking up my phone to text Rhys, when a sound hit my ear.

It was faint but out of place. I titled my head to the side, pointing my right ear in the direction I thought it was coming from. The sound became clearer. I was a rhythmic sound; something close to a puff of air. When patients suck in on an inhaler, it sounds like that. But there was no hiss of the inhaler being shot out before the inhale. I couldn't put my finger on it but it sounded wrong. Even though I couldn't identify it, I knew where it was coming from; the back corner.

The back corner rooms are saved for our less sick patients. They are usually not on heart monitors and don't need to be on our unit but may be with us because beds on a regular floor are not available or they are an overnight observation. Most "chest pains" turn out to be reflux or panic attacks. The patients with chest pain who are at low risk, like young people with normal blood work and no history of cardiac issues, get put in the back corner for the night. It is quiet back there and, most of them, just get a good night sleep and go home with a prescription for Prilosec or Xanax.

I followed the sound into the darkened corner, and away from the beeps of the various monitors. As I neared the sound, a smell joined it. The smell was a mix of cooper, nail polish remover and fruit cocktail syrup. I instantly knew what was happening.

"Code!!!" I screamed and ran into room 512. Flipping on the lights revealed a young man. He could not have been old enough to drink. His back arched off of the bed and his eyes were rolled into the back of his head. His body slammed down into the mattress and he stopped moving. His mouth opened and shut in agonal breaths. It was the only part of him that was attempting to live.

If you don't know what agonal breathing is... think of a fish out of water. The mouth opens and shuts with a gasping attempt to breath.

It is the last stage before death.

His skin was grey. Blood crusted the corners of his mouth.

I pressed my fingers to his jugular. Nothing.

I slammed my hand into the CPR button on the side of the bed. The mattress deflated in a matter of a seconds and the bed became a hard table. I placed one hand onto the other, laced my fingers, rested over his sternum and started to push.

The room became a flurry of motion. Jackson ran in, backwards, with the crash cart. A respiratory therapist followed him, unlocked the brake on the bed and pulled the head of it away from the wall. I moved with the bed, continuing chest compressions. He locked the bed and caught the Ambu-Bag that Jackson tossed to him. He laid the mask over the patient's nose and mouth. I stopped and he squeezed the bag. I started back up. Alex came into the room, no white coat, but all the authority and confidence, of the best physician. He asked for report.