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...
