It might be too late...
The hospital was unusually quiet that bleak January evening, quiet and
still like the air before a storm. I stood in the nurses' station on the
seventh floor and glanced at the clock.
It was 9 P.M. I threw a stethoscope around my neck and headed for room 712,
last room on the hall. Room 712 had a new patient. Mr. Williams. A man all
alone. A man strangely silent about his family. As I entered the room, Mr. Williams looked up eagerly, but drooped his
eyes when he saw it was only me, his nurse. I pressed the stethoscope over his
chest and listened. Strong, slow, even beating. Just what I wanted to hear.
There seemed little indication he had suffered a slight heart attack a few
hours earlier. He looked up from his starched white bed. "Nurse, would you -
"He hesitated, tears filling his eyes. Once before he had started to ask
me a question, but changed his mind. I touched his hand, waiting. He brushed
away a tear. "Would you call my daughter? Tell her I've had a heart
attack. A slight one. You see, I live alone and she is the only family I have."
His
respiration suddenly speeded up. I turned his nasal oxygen up to eight litres a
minute. "Of course I'll call her," I said, studying his face. He gripped
the sheets and pulled himself forward, his face tense with urgency. "Will
you call her right away - as soon as you can?"
He was breathing fast - too fast.
"I'll call her the very first thing," I said, patting his shoulder. I flipped off the light.
He closed his eyes, such young blue eyes in his 50 - year - old face. Room 712
was dark except for a faint night light under the sink. Oxygen gurgled in the
green tubes above his bed. Reluctant
to leave, I moved through the shadowy silence to the window. The panes were
cold. Below a foggy mist curled through the hospital parking lot. "Nurse,"
he called, "could you get me a pencil and paper?" I dug a scrap of
yellow paper and a pen from my pocket and set it on the bedside table. I walked
back to the nurses' station and sat in a squeaky swivel chair by the phone. Mr.
Williams's daughter was listed on his chart as the next of kin. I got her
number from information and dialled. Her soft voice
answered. "Janie, this is Sue Kidd, a registered nurse at the hospital.
I'm calling about your father. He was admitted tonight with a slight heart
attack and " "No!" she screamed into the phone,
startling me. "He's not dying is he ?" "His
condition is stable at the moment," I said, trying hard to sound convincing.
Silence. I bit my lip.
"You must not let him die!" she said. Her
voice was so utterly compelling that my hand trembled on the phone. "He is
getting the very best care."
"But
you don't understand," she pleaded. "My daddy and I haven't spoken.
On my 21st birthday, we had a fight over my boyfriend. I ran out of the house.
I-I haven't been back. All these months I've wanted to go to him for
forgiveness. The last thing I said to him was, I hate you."
Her voice cracked and I heard her heave great agonizing sobs. I sat,
listening, tears burning my eyes. A father and a daughter, so lost to each
other. Then I was thinking of my own father, many miles away. It has been so
long since I had said, "I love you." As Janie struggled to
control her tears, I breathed a prayer. "Please God, let this daughter
find forgiveness."
"I'm coming. Now! I'll be there in 30 minutes," she said. Click.
She had hung up. I tried to busy myself with a stack of charts on the desk. I couldn't concentrate. Room 712; I knew I had
to get back to 712. I
hurried down the hall nearly in a run. I opened the door. Mr. Williams lay
unmoving. I reached for his pulse. There was none.
"Code 99, Room 712. Code 99. Stat." The alert
was shooting through the hospital within seconds after I called the switchboard
through the intercom by the bed. Mr. Williams had a cardiac arrest. With
lightning speed I levelled the bed and bent over his mouth, breathing air into
his lungs (twice). I positioned my hands over his chest and
compressed. One, two, three. I tried to count. At
fifteen I moved back to his mouth and breathed as deeply as I could. Where was
help? Again I compressed and breathed, Compressed and . He could not die! "O God," I prayed.
"His daughter is coming! Don't let it end this way."
The door burst open. Doctors
and nurses poured into the room pushing emergency equipment. A doctor took over
the manual compression of the heart. A tube was inserted through his mouth as
an airway. Nurses plunged syringes of medicine into the intravenous tubing. I
connected the heart monitor. Nothing. Not a beat. My
own heart pounded. "God, don't let it end like this. Not in bitterness and
hatred. His daughter is coming. Let her find
peace." "Stand
back," cried a doctor. I handed him the paddles for the electrical shock
to the heart. He placed them on Mr. Williams's chest. Over and over we tried.
But nothing. No response. Mr. Williams was dead. A nurse
unplugged the oxygen.
The gurgling stopped. One by one
they left, grim and silent.
How could this happen? How? I stood by his bed, stunned. A cold wind
rattled the window, pelting the panes with snow. Outside -everywhere - seemed a
bed of blackness, cold and dark. How could I face his daughter?
When I left
the room, I saw her against a wall by a water fountain. A doctor who had been
inside 712 only moments before stood at her side, talking to her, gripping her
elbow. Then he moved on, leaving her slumped against the wall. Such pathetic
hurt reflected from her face. Such wounded eyes. She knew.
The doctor had told her that her father was gone. I took her hand and
led her into the nurses' lounge. We sat on little green stools, neither saying
a word. She stared straight ahead at a pharmaceutical calendar, glass-faced,
almost breakable-looking.
"Janie, I'm so, so sorry," I said. It was pitifully
inadequate. "I
never hated him, you know. I loved him," she said.
God, please help her, I thought. Suddenly she whirled toward me. "I
want to see him." My first
thought was, Why put yourself through more pain? Seeing him will only make it
worse. But I got up and wrapped my arm around her. We walked slowly down the
corridor to 712. Outside the door I squeezed her hand, wishing she would change
her mind about going inside. She pushed open the door.
We moved to the bed, huddled together, taking small steps in unison.
Janie leaned over the bed and buried her face in the sheets. I tried not to
look at her at this sad, sad good-bye. I backed against the bedside table. My
hand fell upon a scrap of yellow paper. I picked it up. It read:
My dearest Janie,
I forgive you. I pray you will also forgive me. I know that you love me.
I love you too,
Daddy
The note was shaking in my hands as I thrust it toward Janie. She read
it once. Then twice. Her tormented face grew radiant. Peace began to glisten in
her eyes. She hugged the scrap of paper to her breast.
"Thank You, God," I whispered, looking up at the window. A few
crystal stars blinked through the blackness. A snowflake hit the window and
melted away, gone forever. Life seemed as fragile as a snowflake on the window.
But thank You, God, that relationships, sometimes fragile as snowflakes, can be
mended together again - but there is not a moment to spare.
I crept from the room and hurried to the phone. I would call my father.
I would say, "I love you."
P.S. I think it would be a wonderful idea for each of us to take a
minute of our busy day and tell people that are special to us that we love
them....before it's too late!
Author Unknown -
