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The Drowning

She arrived on a wheelchair.

Eighty-six.

Skin like parchment stretched too thin.

Eyes wide with terror.

Her son had wheeled her in,

an anesthetist, one of us.

A lifetime spent escorting souls through shadows,

pulling them back from the void.

He’d watched monitors flatline for strangers,

but nothing prepares you

for your mother’s drowning gasps,

the wet rattle of betrayal in her lungs.

We cleared a bed.

Masked her.

Vitals screamed the truth:

low oxygen sats, tanking blood pressure.

She gasped,

her words crumbled into silence.

Her pulse flickered, and then fled.

Cardiac arrest.

Gloves snapped on,

the room sharpened.

Fear was forged

into action.

The Arrest

Chest compressions began,

thirty-to-two, relentless.

Five cycles deep,

Adrenaline surged into her veins every fourth minute.

Her son stood in the corner,

his hands itching to intervene,

frozen by the unbearable weight

of blood ties over protocol.

He sank into the depths of the ER floor.

Children always do when their parents are dying.

Even when they’ve grown old enough to carry

stethoscopes, titles, and a mountain of detachment.

Our silence thrummed louder than alarms.

Then a spark, return of spontaneous circulation.

Fragile, defiant. Hers.

We got her back.

Airway locked.

Noradrenaline to prop her blood pressure,

dopamine for the fight against defiant demons.

Central line threaded into her trembling neck vein.

Her son edged closer, eyes a waterfall.

His hands still shaking.

He nodded at me,

a wordless pact, with the miracle we don’t dare claim.

The Departure

The ER

was a wreck.

Tubes, syringes, discarded gloves,

the debris of desperate faith.

The monitor's beep steadied.

He claimed her hand, the one that steadied his first steps.

He memorized her face,

bracing for the next betrayal.

We tidied.

Drips tuned, charts filled.

Rituals profane

after defying death.

His “thank you” cracked,

not thanks, but yielding.

His science shattered

when our gloved communion held the line.

We shifted her to the ICU,

stable, yet teetering.

He trailed,

masked and masked within.

The ER?

The ER churned on.

Next alarm,

next negotiation with the reaper.

The Return

Seven days later, she was dischaged.

Walking. Alive.

She looked smaller.

Death’s theft etched light, yet radiant, unbowed.

She gave us sweets in a ribboned box.

Trembling hands, wrapping gratitude old-school.

Her son beside her,

his worry eased to wonder.

Nurses clustered,

smiles cracking fatigue.

Juniors gasped at the ghost reborn,

proving points with laughter.

Her laugh forgave the abyss.

In it, something ancient stirred:

We love these strangers fiercely,

beyond protocols, sats and survival stats.

We fight with bruised fists

and fractured sleep.

Clutch pulses

like sacraments.

Not detachment.

Devotion. Gloved.

Silent. Thankless.

Craving one more beat, one more dawn.

The Epilogue

When they left the hospital,

I sat in the doctors’ room.

Adrenaline’s ghost on my skin,

I saw her son’s helplessness.

This is what pulls us back.

Not scalpels

or stats,

but love.

Love that cracks ribs,

injects fire, defies the flatline’s lie.

Love in latex,

shielding hearts with hands.

When I got up to return to the chaos,

Seneca’s charge echoed in my ears,

to save is to defy death’s complicity,

one veiled heartbeat at a time.

If this made you pause, forward it to someone who might need it.

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More soon.

Another moment.

Another reminder that we are still, somehow, human in all of this.

Yours,

Dr. Adarsh Nath,

Letters from the ER

Disclaimer:

Patient details have been changed to protect confidentiality. This is a personal reflection, not medical advice or substitute for professional care.