#ccrn

Sometimes it's just beatin' Some days you just forget What all you've been given Yeah, some days you just get back

And some days you're just alive

~ Dierks Bentley

I walked through the door, the familiar sounds of my baby laughing and husband talking filled the room. The smell of dinner hung in the air as I kicked off my shoes and set my bag on the floor.

“Hi babe. How are you?” he asked with a smile in his gray eyes. I paused and shrugged my shoulders.

A dozen moments from the day raced through my head.

The look of panic on a daughters face as she watched us hold her mother down so she didn’t bleed out or rip out tubes. The monitors incessant screams as she went into ventricular tachycardia in the 220s and I exchanged glances with my orientee. The feeling of calm as I explained to the daughter what happened after we had a steady rhythm and stabilization.

The death hovering in the air as a different patient went into Torsades and we started CPR.

The feeling of those ribs shattering under my hands.

One. After. The. Other.

The feeling of surprise when a pulse appeared and the frustration when it disappeared and then appeared again... after 19 minutes.

The flash of tears and blue eyes as I knelt beside his wife who was surrounded by kids and asked her if she wanted us to code him again if he arrested. The look of heart wrenching sadness in her eyes when I told her that we would do everything she wanted us to do… but if it was my husband, I would not allow us to code him again.

The relief I felt when she asked for him to be a DNR...

I looked at my husband and smiled as I shrugged…

May 28th, 1945