“Raise your hands up”, I say.
\nShe obeys while moving her fingers several times
\nagainst her thumbs in loose fists.
\n“Does it hurt?”
\n“No, only my neck hurts…and I can\u2019t move my fingers”, she says.
\n“What happened?”, she asks.<\/p>\n
I think she has had a concussion. Paramedics just brought her to me in the ER
\nand she has been asking us the same question every couple of minutes.
\n\u201cWhat happened?\u201d Followed by the words, \u201cI can\u2019t move my fingers\u201d.<\/p>\n
Her scalp isn\u2019t bleeding. There\u2019s a bump where her neck hurts.
\nHer ribs seem fine. “But I cannot move my fingers”, she says again.<\/p>\n
“Yes, you can. You\u2019re doing so right now. Can you touch your bellybutton?”, I ask.
\nShe moves her arm towards her stomach and then hovers hesitantly
\nhalfway between breast and belly button.<\/p>\n
“It must be here\u201d, she says. \u201cBut I cannot move my fingers.\u201d
\nI touch her bellybutton. “It\u2019s here, can you feel my hand?”
\n“No.”
\nI touch the arc of her ribs, “Can you feel this?”.
\n“A little.”
\nI touch her just below the collarbone, “Can you feel this?”
\n“Yes.”
\n\u201cBut please, I cannot feel my legs\u201d, she says.<\/p>\n
When you\u2019ve worked in a hospital a while,
\nyou learn that there is a nurse for every situation.
\nToday, I have the perfect one.
\nShe senses the dread rising in me, whips around,
\nrummages through a drawer and hands me a reflex hammer.
\n“Use this”, she says. “Here for sharp, here for blunt.”<\/p>\n
I stop my rioting thoughts in their tracks by listening attentively.
\nMy brain zones in on her crisp and clear voice,
\neverything around her is a hazy copy of the scene,
\nand somewhere in my distant subconscious,
\nI can feel a part of me shutting down.
\nI am now on automaton as I proceed to test the patient with the hammer.<\/p>\n
“Do you feel this?”
\n“Yes.”
\n“Do you feel this?”
\n“No.”
\n“Do you feel this?”
\n“A little.”
\n“Can you tell me if it\u2019s sharp or blunt?”
\n“I can only feel a little…no, I can\u2019t feel anything.”<\/p>\n
Now I am using the hammer on her stomach. Now on her thighs.
\nI am hitting a little harder.<\/p>\n
“Do you not feel anything? I\u2019m hitting you!”<\/p>\n
I am hammering on her knees now, in my mind there is a screaming disbelief.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo…no\u2026\u201d she says, echoing the words in my mind.
\n\u201cPlease\u201d, she says, \u201cI can\u2019t feel my legs\u2026 Oh God!\u201d<\/p>\n
I look across my patient and fall into the depths of the nurses\u2019 eyes,
\nand all the answers to my fumbling mind\u2019s questions are reflected in there.
\nI grab unto the cot railing and wait for my dizzy spell to pass.<\/p>\n
The rest happens in a blur: call neurologist; speak with patient; inject medication; organise transport to neurosurgery\u2026<\/p>\n
In the morning, I report the case to my attending physician
\nas he pulls up the CT scans.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s it\u201d, he says.
\n“What do you mean?”
\n\u201cThat\u2019s it. It\u2019s done.\u201d
\nAnd then, because it\u2019s clear that I don\u2019t understand.
\n\u201cThe damage cannot be undone\u201d, he says.<\/p>\n
I back up against the wall and slide down into a squat.
\nThe scene of my conversation with her daughter is now replaying in my mind.
\nI am asking her what she already knows.
\nThen I\u2019m telling her what we found on the CT scans.
\nAnd I am telling her that we are arranging to transport her mother
\nto neurosurgery for an emergency procedure.<\/p>\n
And I am telling her, quite clearly, that even though there will be an operation,
\nshe should brace herself for the fact that: this is it.<\/p>\n
And I know from the dawning clarity on her face and her sudden tears
\nthat she understands what I am saying.
\nThat she knows, without really fathoming all the many different facets of sorrow
\nthat will come with this information,
\nthat this is final.<\/p>\n
That her mother is now paralysed from the breast down.<\/p>\n
She knows this because I am telling this to her and she believes me.<\/p>\n
But then I see myself speaking to her, and I am suddenly painfully aware that,
\neven though I am telling her what she needs to know,
\nI myself do not believe my own words.<\/p>\n
What is it that keeps me this na\u00efve? Optimistic, perhaps unrealistically so?
\nIs this a coping mechanism for protecting heart and sanity?
\nFor getting the job done despite being inundated by crippling sorrow?<\/p>\n
Or am I just in denial?<\/p>\n
Why am I the only one in this scenario who,
\neven as I write this several hours later,
\nstill doesn\u2019t know that
\n\u201cIt is done\u201d?<\/p>\n
Edit: “Raise your hands up”, I say. She obeys while moving her fingers several times against her thumbs in loose fists. “Does it hurt?” “No, only […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,3,4,75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all","category-medical","category-story","category-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yetunde-siemers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yetunde-siemers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yetunde-siemers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yetunde-siemers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yetunde-siemers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=170"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/yetunde-siemers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":178,"href":"https:\/\/yetunde-siemers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170\/revisions\/178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yetunde-siemers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yetunde-siemers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yetunde-siemers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nWeeks later the nurse shows me her obituary.
\nIndeed.
\nRIP GK.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"