Dying young

Just come off night shift. It's been a variable 4 nights. A couple have been quiet (ok, I am allowed to use the 'Q' word since I'm not at work), but last night was eventful.

About last night. My registrar phoned me about 10pm to tell me he had to go across to the other hospital and asked if I would go down to the cath lab to hold on to the registrar bleep and to just be there in case the other registrar (who was scrubbed up and assisting with the angio) needed to leave for any reason. And so I trotted down. Patient on the table was a 36-year-old lady who had recently been treated with coronary artery stents for ischaemic heart disease and had come back in as an emergency with chest pain. When I joined them, they had already seen the "blockages" in the stented vessel on angiography and were doing the usual "clot busting". Well, we were there a while. Patient started to experience chest pain on the table and was repeatedly sick and was moaning about the vomit on her face and insisted that I wipe it off without brushing her eyes with the paper towel. It was a difficult procedure that went more and more pear shaped. She then arrested on the table and soon, the anaesthetists were in, she was being resuscitated and she was intubated. I had to leave about 40 minutes into the chest compressions, but learnt that she was pronounced dead not long after.

All very matter-of-fact. Until you get a chance to sit down after all the adrenaline-pumping action of the night. It hits you that a few hours ago, this lady was with her children, she was chatting and living a life like you and I. Even an hour before she died, she was upset that her face was covered in vomit. Little did she know that it would be her last hour alive and she didn't even get to say goodbye to people who mattered to her.

Death is a part of the job. But when it knocks on the door of someone so young, someone who really isn't much older than you are, someone whom you expected to have quite a few years ahead, it does shake you somewhat. It stops you in your tracks and makes you think if you're living your life or just merely existing. What about the people who matter? Do they know how much they mean to you? Are there regrets? Unfulfilled dreams? On second thought, the grief really lies with the people who are left behind. The parents who'd never ever imagined their child would pre-decease them. The children who are now without a mother. The partner who's without his soulmate.

No, no, I did not cry. I didn't know the lady. She was a patient. Another patient. Have I turned into a cold, unfeeling monster? Or am I just numbed to it all? I don't have all the answers, but I'm grateful that at least I had the chance to pause for thought.