Learning to Adapt

Fred with our wonderful bunch of OB nurses

I am changing.  I am lost for words.  I have rambling thoughts.  How do you process events that pass?

We do good work here.  Lives are saved. But we also make unintentional mistakes.  We contribute both to life and to death.

Is it is someway easier to work in the States.  There we have technology such as ventilators and dialysis machines that give us ley way in dealing with very sick patients.  We do not have to be exact.  Here we do.  Dosing a drugs every 12 hours versus every 72 hours can and will make a difference.  We have no room for mistakes.  We cannot breathe for a patient.  We cannot pee for a patient.

When I first came here, I could only see the end result.  I could only see life or death / failure or success.  Now I am starting to see the moments, the smiles, and the decisions with in the treatment process that are successful despite the end result of life or death.  I now look for these moments and I wonder at times if the “effort” and the fact that we try to help in time of need is more important than the end result.  It is as if the end result is not mine to control, but the moment is.

The young mother at 28 weeks gestation who passed away 12 hours after her emergent c-section (see Three days at HBB) had smiled at me in recovery while struggling to breathe as I told her all went well.  Her face stays with me.  She knew her fate better than I.  Today her 27 week old daughter, now 3 months old, continues to survive.  She has left the hospital.

The 60 plus year old grandma, recovering from “a stroke, in her birthday suit while receiving a bed bath by family.  She tried to cover up but couldn’t.  I tried to hide the fact that I noticed her.  I was not quick enough.  When our eyes met, she knew the “white guy” was caught off guard and lost for words.  We smiled, stroke patient 1, doctor 0.

The young man admitted for renal failure on a Friday in poor condition.  Further testing diagnosed him with a urinary and intestinal tract infection.  By Sunday he was better.  I laughed with him and the family.  We were talking about getting him out of the ICU.  On Monday he died.

The young lady who came to the OB floor around 32 weeks pregnant complaining of vaginal bleeding.  We cared for her for three days, monitoring her and the baby.  Follow up ultrasound and heart tones at 4 pm on the third day showed a good baby.  Heart tones 2 hours later at 6 pm were absent.  There were no smiles in this case.  We at HBB were there for her, we tried.

The 70 plus year old alcoholic who ran out of money and thus he’d been without alcohol for two days had been seizing, according to family for 12 plus hours.  Using high doses of valium, phenytoin and phenobarb we were able to stop the seizures for short periods of time.  However, he died 12 hours later.

The third code I’d ran, in 3 days, on kids less than 5 years of age.  All were brought to the hospital with no respiration and or heartbeat.  The kids did not have a chance.  The nurses gained valuable experience running codes.  I enjoyed the opportunity to share my experience with them.  The families were understandably sad.

Can I smile and laugh in such a setting?  I think so.  And is it OK?

After proof reading this blog my wife asked an interesting question, for me, where is God in all this?  This is a complex question with one clear answer, God is here.  We are here because of God’s example.  He has not only motived us, but others and ABWE, to be more, and he has motived others to support us / ABWE and others financially and spiritually so that we can be here.  From this God has provide a hospital for sick people to come to, not only to experience his word but to hear it.  But what about outcome, if we are truly here because of God and we are doing God’s work why are people dying?  God’s love for us is unconditional and thus so must ours be to him.  In the same breath, people are dying, but people are also living.

God Bless

PS see our updated prayer list and updated picture page