A few weeks ago I
was on call on a Sunday, and as I rounded, I met a man who had a huge
pericardial effusion (water surrounding his heart). From my exam and ultrasound of his heart, I
knew that he had a lot of water around his heart, and that there might come a
time when we might need to drain it to help him get blood to the rest of his
body. When I saw him in the morning, I
felt like we were okay, that we didn’t need to do it right then, he had good
pulses, good blood pressure, and was stable.
That night, when I
was asleep, the phone rang and the nurse said they were calling from Medical
Ward, and right then I knew they were talking about this patient, who we will
call Jack. I quickly get dressed and go
down and find Jack, now without a pulse and in danger of dying if I can’t get
the fluid out from around his heart. I
get everything ready to drain the fluid and before doing so, I stop and talk to
Jack about what I am doing and what might happen. Jack understood that he might die in the
process of me doing it, but will die if I don’t try. He is a Christian and we prayed and I proceeded.
Despite doing this
a number of times on other patients, the procedure is never as easy as it
should be, especially when someone’s life is on the line. The catheters (needle and tube) I had to get to the fluid,
weren’t long enough and the ones that were long enough, weren’t drawing the
fluid back, and so I removed a little, but didn’t feel like I got enough of
it. Jack asked if there was a surgery
that we could do, I told him there was, and we would try that in the morning,
but right now I am just trying to get him through the night.
So in the morning,
I talked to our surgeons, who agreed to open up the sac around his heart and
drain the fluid. Jack agreed to this,
and we thought we had a plan to help him and get him going on the track to
recovery. Unfortunately, when the
surgeons started to drain the fluid, Jack’s heart started to go into a
different rhythm and despite an hour of trying to resuscitate him, he passed
away.
Jack knew Jesus and
knew that death was not the end, but it was still hard for all of us involved,
who had thought we were going to be okay and expected him to come through the
operation. It was a good reminder, that
nothing is as routine as it may seem, and it is good to take each day as a gift
from God and to make the most of it.
