“Coding”
March 19, 2019
Hennepin
Healthcare Lobby
…..a few days have
passed… I still think about what happened in the lobby that afternoon….
questions circle around me….
It was almost an ordinary day. I picked up my brother and
brought him to the hospital for his regular INR and Diabetes appointments. After
we arrived in the underground garage I temporarily lost my phone. A kind woman
passing by called my phone and gave me a small red flashlight to search the
dark corners of my car. I finally found my phone in the most obvious place, my
purse. That flashlight came in handy later on as I searched for answers in dark
unpredictable places.
My
watercolor pads and pens were ready in my bag so I could draw while waiting for
my brother during his appointment. The drawing I did turned out fairly benign
after all. I crouched at the kids table and drew people coming and going on the
skyway between the clinic and hospital pushing wheelchairs, cleaning units and
baby carriages. All kinds of everyone. What I was meant to draw came later
through the inner doors of perception.
Later
as we played Scrabble on the curved and gracious balcony overlooking the lobby we
heard the call “Medical Alert”. And there he was, just one floor down. A large
man sprawled on the carpet near the front door as people arrived for their
appointments. This man, whose name I do not know was being given CPR as a man
pumped and pumped on his chest.
I was a spectator, a human being and an
artist, observing the soul of the hospital at work. It went on for a very long time. We were all ripples
in this pond of crisis, concern and empathy. Medical Expertise arrived with
equipment, gurneys, heart defilibraters and official signatures on their
jackets. The feeling was tense, concerned and connected with many people surrounding
him. Separate and yet a part of this moment. Different people kept pumping on
his chest. The circle widened as concern radiated out from him the way ripples
form in water. Here he was, like a stone
dropped into a pond of crisis, concern and care. Such a deeply private and
public moment. We watched, prayed, hoped and wondered. One young man looked on,
weeping, so moved he could not speak. The pumping continued. Would he make it?
The CPR procedure was real, harsh and at times
violent. It was not easy and questions remain. I don’t know if he survived
I recalled the many times of being here at the
hospital with my husband through the long winter, cold, and unyielding icy
alleys. Through it all until this moment when my heart broke open the way you’d
crack an egg, so moved once again by the way the hospital comes together for
people. “We are Here For Life” Yes.
I watched from the balcony steps. Bearing
witness to the soul and expertise of this hospital staff holding onto this man’s
life held in the balance of life and death. Crying in this most public and
private of moments. Would he make it? We were helpless watching those with medical
expertise continue to pump and try to kindle his life spark again
After
a while he was loaded onto a gurney and wheeled out to a waiting ambulance
which would take him to eager caring hands in ER.
Lingering
we hesitated before returning to the routines of care and work. Later, life in
the lobby returned to normal. But an air of bewilderment hung over the place. I swear the spot where he had laid was
illuminated by those crucial moments we’d bore witness to
I
kept wondering how to try to draw it all.
How
did I draw hope, tears, expert care and
the moist eyes of the woman who made the call? How do I draw tension and many
hands?
How do I draw the deep
eyes of the doctor I spoke to afterwards?
How
do I draw feeling helpless as divine and human hands held this man and everyone
tried their best in the face of the great mystery?
Hours
later I watch the sun setting.
Snow
melts and birds sing.
Spring
is here!
I
look into the open orange tulips perceiving their dark brown stamens and wander
among my wonderings.
Who was he?
Did he make it?
Is he alive or dead?
Will his eyes open to
another day?
the next day I am sitting
in the Wound Clinic waiting room directly across the bay from the ambulance
bay..the unknown man from the lobby remains with me. I wish I could ask someone
who would give me an answer. I gaze at the ambulances. This is where they would
have brought him yesterday. The ambulances have arrived many times. From time
to time I have arrived here too, with my husband in various moments of crisis
days
later my busy life resumes…. questions and wanderings
among
wonderings remain…I take that tiny flashlight given to me in the darkness of
the underground parking garage and search out answers as best I can.
days.....many
days later….. an answer emerges…..he died that day….
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