The Code Blue

"Everything was fine until few hours after,
 patient bled inside her head."

I ended up my rotation in the ICU with a Code Blue--a patient arrested.

The night prior, patient A succumbed into a cerebral infarct. As what doctors usually do, they provide antithrombolytics and all. Patient stabilized for a while. Vitals were normal. There were no signs of respiratory distress. Everything was fine until few hours after, patient bled inside her head. From this point forward, everything went in a down slope pattern.

Patient was ordered a stat craniotomy to drain the hemorrhage. In total, patient was under the knife for about 5 hours.

There was a call from the OR that patient A is desaturating and that she'd be transferred to the ICU for stabilization. Patient was brought to the ICU by the surgical team. At first, i thought everything was okay until one of them shouted: "We're on code blue"

"Patient went asystole for 6 minutes"

That was the first time that i'd really felt a patient's soul trying to leap out of its body. Asystole. Everything was being done to her but to no eventful results. Arterial and venous lines were added, blood transfusions were given stat. A central line was placed. Boluses of epinephrine, bicarb, and atropine were given. Cardiac resuscitation was being done simultaneously until a pulse of showed up. Patient went under arrest for over 6 minutes. That, i must say is long. That, according to studies is tantamount to brain damage.

The patient survived; however, stepping back, I would say the life of the patient may have only been prolonged for just days. I hope she lives longer. I hope she can fight-off her illness. I hope that one day, she'd be able to function again. And I hope, that after all these things, I'd never see her again in my entire practice.

Death is just around the corners of the ICU or should I say around us. We can never know when a patient or when we will expire; what we only know is that living is a slow process of meeting our end, inevitable  goal-- death.