Numb

To a medical professional, death can be seen as a failure in practice. Lately, I have come to realize that this is not true. Death is not something in our hands. God is the ultimate healer and he decides when it is time to cease breathing. This week has been overwhelmingly full of death. I am growing numb to the feeling when time of death is called. It is more a “guarding my heart” mechanism. The other night we got a phone call at the house to have someone find an ambu bag and run it down to male ward. Ashli, Amy and I volunteered and rushed to the hospital. When we arrived, Dr. Kent and Dr. Stephen were preforming CPR on the man with pneumocystis pneumonia (PCP). I pushed some epi as well as atropine as the doctors continued CPR. Despite our valiant efforts God chose to answer no to our plea’s. The man never took another breath. He moved on from this world. After he died, the family came in and began preparing his body. We helped remove all of the medical lines, and his mother closed his eyes and mouth. Then we all helped wrap up his body and position him correctly. The wife, now widower, came into the ward and laid on the ground clutching his lifeless body—wailing—grieving his death.

This is only one of the many accounts this week where I was faced with death. We had multiple cesarean sections with depressed babies that never came to. There was a little child, Fred, on peds ward who passed away, Rehema and 18 year old girl, the man with AIDS—and the list goes on and on. It seems like everyday there is at least one death.

One thing remains—the Lord gives, and the Lord takes away.