Life, Tenuous Life

This Monday morning I was reminded how tenuous the high wire of Life is. Today Mr. Belly Acres had to go to out patient procedure part of the Hospital. While he was in recovery (out patient “procedure” not “surgery”) the man in the next recovery room coded. Literary, Code Blue. Since we were 4 feet away with a puny wall between us and with only a privacy curtain of a wall near the Nurses Station, we heard everything. It was the most upsetting experience I’ve had in a very long time.

The day started rather boring. Mr Belly Acres had to lay flat for 4 hours in recovery, head down legs flat; do not lift your head, do not bend your leg. Since that’s a stinking long time, I was sitting in one of the chairs provided reading my book; and, every once in a while, helping Mr Belly Acres with most various stuff he needed help doing. The next thing I know, I hear first a woman shout… It was a flat out panic shout…very frantic and very upset. Directly after, our nurse  went sprinting by and grabbed the code cart. On the speaker, the operator said “Code Blue to outpatient, Code Blue to outpatient” and all hell broke loose. People were flat out sprinting to the room next to us, a woman was crying, chaos ensued. Then it was over. The Code Blue was cancelled and the man was alive. He was hit twice with the defibrillator in less that 2 minutes. 

When everything started happening I went to stand by Mr Belly Acres and chat more to distract myself than to distract him. If it all went wrong, I did not want the memory of the tragic end in my brain. It didn’t matter, though, because he was back and rushed back into the procedure room to replace the stents that were just implanted. By the time Mr. Belly Acres and I left, the gentleman was back in recovery making sarcastic jokes about him now knowing “how to get women all hot and bothered”.

In the end, Mr Belly Acres was released to go home and had no problems in recovery or the next 48 hours. The “incident” was a reminder that life is precious and it should be treasured as the special gift that it is. I’m quite glad that the man recovered completely  and, as of when we left, was doing fine. I will remember, though, that your loved ones precious and should be treated like the fragile treasure they are.

Fizz

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