ICU, 4AM

I began to view myself as a real nurse only ever since I started working night shifts.
Most of the doctors and allied health professionals go back to their homes, they have lives to live too. But the patients still need to be taken care of, somebody has to be around.
Nurses on night duty are like guards watching over their patients, making sure they are well through the night. Or at least in the ICU, for, as educated to me by my preceptor, ICU nursing is very much about monitoring; you see something not right, you report it to the doctor.
Well, I like making sure my patients have quality rest, as best as they can take.  

Asystole

My husband has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, he went to the hospital last night due to some shortness of breath but had to wait and be treated in the Emergency Department as there were no beds in the wards. I needed to sleep so I said good night to him over the phone.

This morning I got up and noticed many miss calls from an unfamiliar number a few hours ago, I was still asleep then and therefore did not answer the phone. Anyway, I decide to give my husband a call first just to check on him and the hospital admission status. If everything goes well I would get the children ready and take them to visit their grandfather before lunchtime. I dialed, and I dialed again. 

For every second he did not answer the call I began to worry more. At last the caller ring tone stopped, but the voice on the other end of the line was definitely not my husbands; somehow at that moment my heart sank.
It was a male nurse's voice, asking for my name and availability to make a trip to the hospital, and advising me to make it there as soon as possible.
"What happened to my husband?" I asked, already nearly bursting in tears.
"Sorry, madam, his heart stopped early in the morning, he was resuscitated for about thirty minutes, intubated and thereafter brought to the Intensive Care Unit," said the nurse in a deep voice.
The household and probably immediate neighbours were awaken by my crying; I broke down upon hearing the terrible news and could no longer feel my feet as my daughter had to sit me down and take over speaking to the nurse.

On arrival to the ICU I walked pass a few patients, dreading to see my husband as I may not be able to handle the sight. Alas, I recognised the man there lying unconscious, on a mechanical ventilator helping him breathe. I broke out in tears! I cannot take it! The doctors and nurses were busy around my husband's bed; I waited fifteen minutes and a medical officer comes to explain to me what had happened in the ward earlier this morning. She speaks and she speaks and all that she said did not make any sense to me as her words do not bring my husband back to breathing on his own.

I feel even more helpless and fearful as the doctor's answer fails to comfort me as I enquired, "so will he get up again?"
She can never give me a guarantee, and I cannot blame her for that. 

Just like that, my life will never be the same!