The Threshold

fromMy other blog

Today I had to take a patient from the front entrance of the hospital to the Emergency Department (ED). As I was talking to the patient just to find out how she was feeling and everything, I passed a large room (one of like 4) that is labeled "Resuscitation Room." They can hold two patients and they are huge rooms. Patients only go in there if they are in really bad shape - need lots of medications and help breathing and everything. One of them was occupied. I heard the sounds of a heart monitor. But it wasn't the normal small beeps that indicate that the patient's heart was beating. The machine was literally screaming - that little beep turned into one long blaring beep. That meant that the patient's heart was stopped. I knew that was what it was, but at the time, I was focused on the patient I was bringing in.

After dropping her off, I passed the Resuscitation Room again. This time it was quiet. When the patient was there, the curtain was drawn. But this time, there was a space where a stretcher had once stood and around it lay wrappings from syringes and other equipment. The room was still, but yet, I knew that a few moments ago, it was occupied and probably full of people trying to get this patient's heart started.

But where was the patient?
Was he or she in another part of the ED?
Or had he or she died?
Right there? In that room? Right by where I was walking with my patient?

Chills just hit me along with just this feeling of how odd it was that I was on the threshold of a room where someone may well have passed away. And they too were on the threshold. When the machine was blaring instead of rhythmically beating - when their heart was stopped instead of normally working, that patient was on the threshold between life and death. Medication and other techniques could've brought him or her back, but God had His final say ultimately.

I left the ED and my dispatcher said that I didn't need to do any more transports for the moment. So, I went to an isolated corner by our office and knelt to pray. For the patient whereever he or she was, and for the family wherever they were. And for myself, that God would calm me down so I could finish my shift. I cried right there - just me and Him. God - the Creator of all, may have taken demanded the life from one person, but yet at the next moment, comforted one of His children.

"....The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised." Job 1:21