Hi, Mom

You call before bed

ask about your mother's day

her oxygen saturation is 87% 

on 100% FiO2

peep of 38 pressure support of 25

she's turned on her stomach

and I tried to alternate sides of her face

to prevent the sore from building on her cheek

eating away at the apples, leaving black eschar

over a mash of necrotic tissue underneath

but the demand of that alone--

of pulling one arm back and down

and swimming the other one up

tanked her reserves so much

we thought she'd be brain dead--

there is no runway left

her day isn't going so great

she will probably die

you won't get to say good-bye

and if somehow her body survives

we can't guarantee she will be in there

so I simply say:

The good news is: there is no change

You can infer

The bad news is: there is no change

You sigh, not out of impatience, but hopelessness,

helplessness, exhaustion from worry, from grief, from anxiety,

from imagining a life without her

If the phone in her room is working

I can try to transfer you--just give me a minute

because I have to get some medications together

and gown up before I go inside

so the phone will ring for a while.

Don't hang up.

Hello?  Are you still there?

I shout, slowly, chewing each syllable

it's hard to hear through two layers of masks

and a shield

over vents

and pumps

and alarms

and the muffled voices outside the 

glass sliding door

enclosing this 

pitch black death incubating chamber

Can you hear me?

I'm going to put the phone by her ear

and just so you know I'm going to be in here

giving her medications and taking vitals 

and you may hear some beeps and honks

but it's okay, it's just me, suctioning her 

and working the pumps...

I lay the phone by her ear 

speaker between the pulse ox probe

and the internal jugular triple lumen

that is pumping medicine to keep her sedated

so she won't fight the vent

and fentanyl, so she won't remember

and neo, and levo, and vaso 

to keep her brain from dying

and argatroban

to try to keep her from clotting and dying

receiver by the inline suction

Hi, Mom...

Purgatory

 Is there a word to describe
the mixture of shock and elation

and grief a nurse feels

when aa Covid victim--

trached for air

sedated for lung compliance

foley for urine--maybe

flexi for diarrhea

Quinton for dialysis from Covid-kidney failure

central line for heparin, propofol, precedex, fentanyl,

levo, vaso, antibiotics, blood

A-line to watch their heart and pressure

restrained on the off chance

they wake and come rip roaring to life

left for hours

and days

and weeks

maybe months

in a black hole of a room

in the basement of the hospital

in a row of isolation rooms

in a maze of rows

each one, a cell of ceramic and drywall, and ceiling tile,

alone for never ending eternity

aside from the hourly rounds

medication administration

suctioning

oral care

and the occasional bath--when the

waveforms and data on the monitors

tell the nurses their oxygen reserves

can withstand being turned

from one side to the other

and back again,

all but assumed a lost cause,

covered in deep tissue wounds and eschar

from bed sores from being bed bound

and prone

because nothing matters more than

airway, breathing, circulation--

feels your hand on theirs

and suddenly squeezes back

and you realize

My God.

There is a person in there.

Still

Somehow

Awake

Clinging to your hand

So stay in the darkness

praying the mask you've worn three days in a row

won't snap off,

the makeshift shield a friend's friend has printed

won't flip apart

standing in the stifling heat in the plastic bag

protecting your skin from the plague,

every second you stay

a risk to your life

as their gasps vent aerosolized Covid

out of the back oof the machine that is 

forcing breath into them

and try to tell them,

You are not alone

I'm still fighting for you

Stay with me

But you don't know Spanish

so the only thing that comes out of your mouth 

is the lie:

Está bien, papi.