Intensive care by Echo Heron (aw extract)

I went to the bed again and looked at the man’s face. As I leaned close to him, my hand moved to his forehead and slowly wiped away the sweat. I pulled the bloody tape away from his upper li p and was surprised to see the full white mustache. For a time I looked carefully at his face and decided it was a kind one.

Pulling back the lids of his eyes, I found large and unre­sponsive pupils surrounded by a ring of light blue. I moved close to his ear and whispered. “Colonel, I am here, do you know that? I am right here.”

Down at the end of the bed I massaged his purple feet as they lay still and ice-cold. I thought about his life, his work, and wondered if he’d ever gone fishing. “What kind of man were you really?" I asked aloud. While listening to the answers of silence, I noticed the monitor: heart rate 70; blood pressure 74. He was slowing down despite the drugs.

Twenty minutes passed, and the stift, whooshing noise from the respirator lulled me into a kind of trance as I did my charting and prepared the paper work. A male voice startled me. Looking up, I saw a tall man with a middle-aged woman standing close to him. They looked worried and anxious.

“How’s he doing?” the man asked, hope hanging on every word of the question.

“Not well,” I answered. “He is very critical at this point.”

The woman moved toward me slightly, wringing her hands.

“Do you think he’ll pull out of this? We have been his friends for so long. How long will he be in the hospital?”

I paused, staring directly at the woman. “He is not going to make it. His body is dying now ... as we speak.”

The man stepped toward me with a look that said he did not believe me; he wanted to bargain. “Look, if we go to San Francisco and hire the best specialists, that would help, wouldn’t it?”

I stood up and approached them. “No. His brain is dead. He, the man, the person, really died last night; only his heart is beating and a machine is breathing for him. Not much else is functioning.”

Both the man and the woman looked away from me, but not at each other. For a second I was afraid I’d said too much, too bluntly.

After a moment the man said, “Oh, dear God, I feel so bad.” His eyes filled with tears, and the woman put her hand on his arm without looking at his face.

“He was very special, wasn’t he?” I asked quietly.

There was a brief silence. Then the tall man answered me in a torrent of words that gained momentum as he spoke. “He was a wonderful man, the best of men. So intelligent, and boy, talk about a sense of humor!” The man threw his head back and laughed at the ceiling, though tears still dripped from his face. “He made everyone laugh. He tried to teach people how l o feel good about their lives. He was a professor at Stanford, you know — very quick mind and yet always so gentle.” He paused, then: “Special? Yes, he was definitely special.”

The woman spoke up with a shaking voice. “Thank you, thank you so much for telling us the truth.”

A lump came to my throat, and I could only respond with a smile. And with that they left me alone with my patient.

The thermometer now read less than 98.8 degrees. I felt the clamminess of his skin and had a half-formed thought of primitive things from the sea. I shuddered and walked Lo the outer door. Through the waiting room I saw the white- haired woman still sitting on the couch. I opened the door and asked her to come in. It was her time with him.

She approached the bed very slowly, then touched his face and kissed him. “Papa? Papa, I love you so much. I always have, darling. Don’t forget I love you so. I love you.”

I pretended to rearrange the plastic tubes and gray moni­tor leads that were no longer of use. I was torn between the curiosity and feeling intrusive, witnessing the years of love.

“During the night,” the white-haired woman said, not taking her eyes off her husband, “he woke up several times, you know, the way the older people do, but the last time, when he walked back toward the bed, he called my name out. Just once. He looked so strange, lost really. Then he fell down, and I didn’t know what to do. I was scared and he wouldn’t answer me, so I just kept talking to him, holding him, but he didn’t say another word.”

His wife opened her purse and took out an embroidered pink handkerchief and wet a tip of it with her saliva. With that she wiped away a smear of orange germicide from his chin. She picked up his cool, limp hand and put it softly to her check. “We were married forty-two years and loved each other every single day. He was my gift from God.”

She stared down at him and kissed the palm of his hand. “I love you, my darling. Good-bye for now.”

She put his hand down, closed her purse, and walked out of the room without saying another word. Forty-two years of loving, and in one instant it was history.

Thirty minutes later, as I was turning him onto his side, I felt another presence in the room. Looking up, I saw Dr. Skinner staring at us from the door.

“The head scan showed massive hemorrhage. The largest I’ve ever seen. Stop all the drugs. The family wants it that way.” “Okay,” I said, but didn’t move toward the intravenous lines. He felt like an intruder, and I wanted him to leave.

After a second he said, “He was dead before he even hit the floor.” It was his explanation, his excuse. He shrugged and walked away.

Carefully letting down the side rails, I gently put my hands under the Colonel’s shoulders and spoke to him in a slow, measured whisper.

“Did you feel all this love here today? You can leave this behind you now. It’s all right, I promise.”

My face touched his. “I’ll stay with you. I’ll be right here.” A soft buzzing drifted through the room', demanding at­tention, as a small red light flashed in harmony to the sound. Blood pressure 40, heart rate 32. I squeezed his hands and felt a pressure rise in my throat. The blurring image of his face was changed and molded through my tears.

I turned to the pole holding the blue intravenous fluid, the one that kept his blood pressure up, and turned the plastic stopcock to the “off” position; then the yellow fluid, the one that kept his heart beating Smoothly ... off.

“All the pain is over for you now. Let it go. Let go.” His skin was almost white, and the ring of blue surroun­ding his pupils had disappeared, leaving only the gray-black window open to finality.Again the monitor flashed and buzzed as the agonal rhythm, the rhythm ofdeath, slowly snaked its way across the screen .... right to left. Blood pressure ... zero.

The respirator seemed suddenly loud and obnoxious, dimi­nishing the dignity of death. With one smooth, swift move­ment, I pulled plug from the wall, creating silence.

For just a second his spirit and mine lived in that silence together. For just one moment I knew all the warmth and joy his spirit had ever given.

I removed all the tubes and tape from his body and washed him with the warm, soapy water reserved for the living. And as I bathed him,-I softly hummed a lullaby, covered him with a clean, soft blanket, and said, “Good-bye, Colonel.”

Task 46. Which of the following sentences are true and which are false?

1. Echo was not feeling intrusive witnessing the years of love. 2. She turned the plastic stopcock to the “off” position.

3. The patient was slowing down despite the drugs. 4. The patient will pull out of this critical condition. 5. Echo is a resolute woman. 6. The nurse did not hum a lullaby while bathing Colonel. 7. Echo did not pull the plug from the wall.

Task 47. Find evidence in the abstract that:

1. Echo acted like a sympathetic woman. 2. Colonel’s wife loved him dearly. 3. Colonel was very special. 4. Colo­nel’s blood pressure was extremely low. 5. Patient died of a stroke. 6. Plastic tube and gray monitor leads were no longer of use. 7. Echo is frank and outspoken.

Task 48. Match the words:
1. to speak	a	— humour
2. a brief	b	— mind
3. a torrent of	c	— woman
4. very quick	d	— bluntly
5. a white-haired	e	— skin
6. the clamminess of	f	— words
7. a sense of	g	— silence
8. gift from	h	— handkerchief
9. an embroidered	i	— God
10. blood	j	— hemmorrhage
11. massive	k	— pressure

Keys

Task 7. 1 — f; 2 — g; 3 — i; 4 — k; 5 — c; 6 — e; 7 — a; 8 — b;

9. - h; 10 - j; 11 - d.

Task 15. 1 - c( (oto-); 2 — j (helio-); 3 — a (myringo-; tympano-);

4 — i (copho-); 5 — b (-logy);' 6»'-*^h (meso-); 7 —^f

(mastoid-); (tympanic-); 8 — g (-porosis); 9 — e (phono-);

9. — c (tympano-).

Task 28. 1 — f; 2 e; 3 — h; 4 — b; 5 — g; 6 — c; 7w d; 8 — a.

Task 33. 1 S d; 2 - a; 3 - j; 4 - i; 5 - f; 6 7 - h; 8 - g; 9

- c; 10 - b.

Task 34. 1 — c (ophthalmoscopy); 2 — d (xerosis); 3 — c (exoph- thalmus); 4 -J*b (hyelitis); 5 — b (ophthalmosteresis); 6 — a (presbyophrenia); 7 — d (dacryocyctotomy); 8 — a (blepharitis); 9 b (phacoemulsification); 10 — a (photo­phobia).

Task 35. 1 —- j; 2 — d; 3 — h; 4 1 g; 5 9i; 6 -#7 - c; 8 |j b; 9 - a; 10 - f.

Task 43. 1 — g; 2 — j; 3 fy, a; 4 - f; 5 — b; 6 — d; 7 — c; 8 — e; 9 - 1 10 - i.

Task 46. 1 — false; 2 — true; 3 — true; 4 — false; 5 — true; 6 — false; 7 — false.