Elixir of Life

Chapter 6: The Night Of

Naseem Hamed

May 6th, 2017

Hamed Residence

Naseem's eyes immediately opened to the sound of his phone's alarm. He turned to see his phone read: 04:45, Naseem turned it off and made sure it did not wake Faryal. He put on his glasses, reached for his watch, put it on and took groggy steps over to Faryal's side, putting two fingers to her neck and eyes on his watch, her pulse had not changed from yesterday's, then walked into their warmed bathroom floor and stepped into the walk-in shower, turning the knob as the water poured like rainfall directly above him from the square-shaped showerhead. When he was done, he dried himself in a fluffy, white cotton robe, put on charcoal trousers, a dress shirt, charcoal tie, and matching suit jacket.

            This was the continuous, repetitive, and mundane routine which had played endlessly for the past year. An idiosyncratic series of robotic actions which provided neither pain nor joy to Naseem's inattentive feelings.

            Naseem drove through light, pre-dawn traffic as the dark sky battled the early morning dark-blue hue, he parked the Range Rover in the first floor of the KFMC parking lot, locked the car with one hand, and the other held a leather briefcase full of summaries for upcoming surgeries, walked to the front of the hospital's glass-walled lobby where ambulance lights flashed beside the ER drop-off, walked through the lobby and pressed the button for the elevator, the doors opened on the Surgical ICU floor and Naseem approached the nurses' station where the OR schedule for the day was displayed on a screen, learning no changes had been made.

            He sat behind his office desk speaking with the Chief of Surgery on the opposite side, concerning this week's OR schedule, how he would share shifts with the only other cardiac surgeon, that Naseem would be the on-call surgeon for tonight, Naseem told him he had consultations scheduled until noon and thanked him for his time. They exchanged good wishes and bid farewells. His phone buzzed with a text from Faryal's caregiver, sending him today's numbers and blood results, with no drastic difference from yesterday's, and Naseem took the elevator down to Cardiology.

            When he was consulting with in-house patients for the cardiologists, Naseem had begun to feel slightly nauseous, with a shivering hand, and some congestion, asking for a quick, informal exam with one of the clinic physicians who was able to squeeze him in, Naseem left the clinic and walked back through the glass lobby of the hospital, back up the elevator to Surgical ICU, walked to one of the meeting rooms where his next surgery's team was waiting for him.

            Naseem stood beside a white board examining their patient's x-rays, writing down blood-type, current blood pressure, his age, weight, sex, and his medical conditions on the board for the CVOR nurse, surgeon's assistant, CPB perfusionist, and anesthesiologist seated in front of him taking diligent notes, Naseem reviewed the coronary artery bypass grafting procedure they were meant to begin within the next hour, addressed any concerns from the surgical team members, predicted and solved any possible risks or complications which could occur given the procedure and the patient.

            Naseem checked his watch as he left the meeting room, 14:45, and checked in at the nurses' station for any updates to the OR schedule. There was one. Sunday's pacemaker insertion was moved to the next day. He then went into OR 3 where his surgical team scrubbed in and got dressed into PPE's.

            The surgeon opened the double-doors of OR 3, checked his watch, 18:32, and checked with the nurses' station one last time, before finishing his last surgery's progress notes, updating himself on recent patients' discharge information, and finished today's shift. He was now the on-call cardiac surgeon.