One Human Loving Another

“Code Blue, ICU 6! Code Blue, ICU 6! Code Blue, ICU 6!” “s**t!” Melissa dropped the supplies she was holding on the Central Supply counter. “That’s my patient. I’ll come back as soon as I can for all this.” The supply room guy looked irritated. Well, too damn bad if you have to put the stuff back. My patient is dying! Getting off the elevator, Melissa pulled her hair cover and N95 mask out of her scrubs pocket and hurriedly put them on as she headed for the double doors of the ICU COVID unit. She swiped her ID badge in the badge reader on the wall adjacent to the doors and they swung open, revealing the activity taking place all along the hallway. Melissa maneuvered her way past IV poles and crash carts and nurses’ laptop carts, and finally made it to room 6, where the code team was already at work on Joe. Melissa grabbed a yellow isolation gown out of the top drawer of the isolation cart and struggled into it. She tried three times to tie the gown closed before finally getting the strips of paper into some semblance of a bow. “s**t, s**t, s**t!” Sliding her sweaty hands into gloves was another challenge but she finally was able to push the glass door open, sliding her plastic face shield into place as she entered the crowded room and pulled the door shut behind her. “What the hell happened?” Melissa cornered one of the other RNs once she saw that the Code Team was already performing CPR and knew she’d just be in the way. “He was doing so much better this morning!” The nurse turned toward Melissa and she saw that it was Angie behind the mask. “You no sooner left to go to Central Supply when his O2 sats started dropping. I mean, really bottoming out. I think he may have thrown a clot. Did you notice any swelling in his legs earlier?” Melissa thought back over the day, another in a string of hectic days she’d been moving through almost like a zombie. Over the past few months, COVID-19 had finally reared its ugly head in her city and her normally quiet hospital had become a war zone. Had she overlooked some critical finding? Was it her fault that Joe had taken this turn? “Honestly, I didn’t notice anything different. I mean, not bad-different. His vitals were actually pretty good today and his labs had started looking more promising. I had high hopes that he was going to make it out of here. God damn it! Why today of all days?” “Is one day better than another to code?” Angie wasn’t trying to be funny, but the nurses almost couldn’t help sharing a dark sense of humor, what with all the crap they saw on a daily basis. “Of course not, but it’s the timing. Joe’s wife called earlier. Their daughter just gave birth to their first grandchild this morning and she wondered if there was some way to tell him. You know, hoping maybe the news would make him fight harder. This has been so incredibly hard on her. They’ve been together forty years. I can’t even imagine a relationship lasting half that long.” “Yeah, well, not everybody has your love ‘em and leave ‘em attitude, Mel.” Melissa just scowled and turned her attention back to the group around the bed, moving in closer to see if anything was needed. It didn’t appear that things were going well. Damn it! “How long has it been?” Her voice sounded strange to her. “Twenty-three minutes.” “I say we call it.” The physician in charge of the code looked haggard. At least, what could be seen of him through his mask and face shield did. Melissa’s throat ached. No! Come on, Joe, fight, for God’s sake! Doctor Franklin stepped back and looked at his watch. “I’m calling it. Time of death: 6:52.” With his pronouncement, the team sighed and slowed down. They gathered up their equipment and left the room, stripping off PPE and tossing it onto the overflowing trash can beside the door. The relief was palpable. For everyone except Melissa. She would be the one to call Mrs. Hartley to tell her to come in, even though visitors were not allowed. She might even think there was an improvement. Melissa had learned early on in nursing school that you never told someone over the phone that their loved one died because you didn’t want them trying to drive under those conditions. You just said something generic, maybe that the doctor wanted to meet with them to discuss their loved one’s condition. So she wouldn’t give anything away to Joe’s wife. She’d let her have hope for another hour before her day went from the best ever to the worst. “Shit.” Angie, bless her, stayed behind to help Melissa clean up the mess that always followed a code, whether it was successful or not. If the patient survived, the clean-up was a minor chore, a small price to pay. When they didn’t make it, every piece of discarded plastic wrapping that had held a syringe, every medication vial, every bit of blood-soaked gauze was a grim reminder of your failure. “Thanks, girl. I owe you.” Together they gathered up the full trash and linen bags and hauled them out of the room, stripping off their PPE and adding it to the contaminated mess they needed to take to the dirty utility room at the end of the hall. It wouldn’t do to have Joe’s family see the c*****e. By the time they arrived, he would be cleaned up and presentable. Well, as presentable as a dead body could be, at any rate. * * * * Two hours past the end of her shift and Melissa was still sitting in the break room, her head in her hands. Nine years as an ICU nurse and it never got any easier, standing beside the grieving families, hoping no one was going to collapse. And this damn virus made everything a hundred times worse. The best they could offer the next of kin was a glimpse through a window. After forty years together, Joe’s wife couldn’t even touch him one last time. Couldn’t see the face of the man she loved. Just a blurred image through the glass window of the ICU room in which he lay, surrounded by all the expensive technology that couldn’t save a man who should have seen his little granddaughter grow up. And up until three weeks ago, he’d been a vibrant man, a Little League coach. He’d just retired to spend more time with his growing family. Then this. It wasn’t fair! “Anything I can do?” It was not a voice she recognized, and Melissa looked up. Beside her was one of the traveling nurses who’d come from Colorado to help out during the crisis. “No. No, and normally I’m not a wreck like this. Sometimes, you know, you just get to know too much about a patient, and…” Melissa’s voice broke. The woman next to her sat down and put an arm around her. “This s**t will rip you apart, that’s for sure. I mean, it’s one thing to lose a patient from time to time, someone you expect to lose, but you see most of them do better, downgrade to a regular unit. But now…We’re all having to give a hundred percent when we’re exhausted and everything just hits harder. We get to know these people, their families…It definitely takes a toll.” “So what made you come here when things have quieted down where you live?” The other woman shrugged. “A glutton for punishment maybe?” “This sweaty mess sitting beside you is Melissa. I hope you’ll forgive me if I don’t shake hands. I don’t feel entirely human at work these days and, well, you know. Social distancing and all.” The newcomer withdrew her arm and slid her chair a few feet away from Melissa’s. “Oops. Sorry, Melissa. It was presumptuous of me to put my arm around you. I forget sometimes we can’t just…well, can’t engage in normal human interactions at this point in time. If it puts your mind at ease, we all had to be COVID-tested before we were allowed to come here, and I was negative. Okay, technically, ‘not detected’. And, you know, I’m in a mask. A fresh one, too. What a luxury.” “Damn! I forgot I was picking up supplies when my patient coded. Guess someone else got the PPE for you and whoever else came with you. Melissa tried to read the other nurse’s name badge but it was flipped around backwards. “And you are?” “Courtney.” She started to extend her hand before she remembered herself and pulled it back. “Besides myself, there are two others who will be helping to cover, including nights and weekends, so hopefully that will take the burden off your staff some.” Melissa could almost feel her blood pressure reaching a more normal level. There was something about Courtney, with her quiet and peaceful manner—welcome qualities when you were surrounded by madness. Melissa sat up a little straighter. “How long are you staying?” She hoped she didn’t sound as desperate as she felt. “We’ll be here two weeks, longer if you need us. Oddly enough, we’ve all been furloughed from our home hospitals since the rush is over. For now, anyway.” “Well, welcome aboard, Courtney. We’re very glad to have you. More than I can say. But if I don’t leave now, they may have to peel me out of this chair in the morning, and I desperately need a shower. I think my cat may appreciate her dinner as well. See you tomorrow?” “I’ll be here.” Despite the muffling of the mask, Melissa could hear the smile in Courtney’s voice, and she actually smiled back, for what it was worth. Thirty minutes later, inside her apartment, Melissa stripped off every inch of clothing she’d worn at work—minus her shoes, which she’d left in her car—and crammed it all into the laundry bag propped in the corner adjacent to the door. She walked naked to her bathroom. “Dinner will be ready in a few minutes, Luna. You know the routine.” She shooed the cat out of her way and started the water for a shower. Her vigorous scrubbing not only made her feel like an approachable human again, it usually energized her enough to make it through the few more hours before she could crawl into bed. If it was a good night, she’d sleep without nightmares till it all started over again in the morning. Where was someone to have s*x with when you really needed it? Visions of her savior, Courtney, came unbidden into Melissa’s head. “Oh, no you don’t. That’s the last thing you need right now.” Luna meowed. “You’re right. I have enough on my plate, and you don’t have anything. Come on, then.” Melissa grabbed her robe off the hook on the bathroom door and followed the cat to the kitchen, where she emptied a can of food into Luna’s bowl. “Hey, Luna. Tomorrow is your night to cook. It would be nice to come home to a meal cooked for me for a change.” Melissa retrieved the single plate still lying in the sink that she’d rinsed off the night before. A few minutes of rummaging through the pantry and refrigerator and Melissa had a meal, or what passed for one. So what if it was the third day in a row for cheese and crackers? At least she changed it up this time. Gouda instead of Havarti, and Triscuits instead of Ritz. She settled herself in front of the computer to check her mail, barely tasting the food. “Okay, cat. The end of another exciting day. I’m going to bed. You’re free to prowl if you do it quietly.” Yet, tired as she was, Melissa couldn’t fall asleep. She hadn’t even bothered to get into her pajamas, so she lay naked under the covers, her robe draped over the foot of the bed. What was the use? Any friends of hers who didn’t work at the hospital were surely not about to show up on the doorstep of someone who spent her days caring for COVID patients, and her coworkers were as dead on their feet as she was. Social distancing was no problem for her. Lonely? Well, sure. That’d been an issue long before the virus had isolated everyone. But after her last relationship had ended, Melissa wasn’t in a hurry to be the forgiving once yet again. When had faithfulness fallen so far out of favor? God, she was tired of the games. She was turning thirty next month. Thirty! She wanted something to last. Something real. Fat chance of that. Until there was a vaccine, she was not likely to meet the woman of her dreams. But at least she had fresh fodder for her fantasies. Let’s see what Courtney could do for her…