I walked in to do my rounds this morning and was greeted with cheers by my staff. Puzzled, I questioned the ovation. The answers I got, paraphrased were 'look at our baby', 'don't you remember our baby?' Sitted and playing on the lap of someone by the nurses' desk was a chubby, healthy-looking baby. My thought flashed hurriedly into a wild guess. And I was spot-on. It was the baby I had struggled to resuscitate after birth some eight months ago. Born via caesarian section, I had vacated my anaesthetic seat to help help resuscitate him when the APGAR score in the first and fifth minute were less than 5! The protocol is for such babies to be referred to institutions with the the man power and facilities to manage further.
On this day however, my colleague on the other end of the phone said the obvious; the child would have most likely suffered significant brain damage. I was to keep the baby and manage within the capacity of my institution. It was quite a spectacular picture of me ambu bagging the child in an incubator from the theatre to the nursery. Somehow and at some point, the child picked up and was weaned off oxygen. But before this, the unmarried mother died! This was shortly after surgery. Post motem later revealed cause of death to be pulmonary embolism. It was a very distressing time at work. The official paper trail of maternal deaths is not what one could wish for any doctor.
'My baby' improved to the point of being discharged from the hospital to his relatives. On the set date, I had gone round the hospital taking monetary and other contributions from staff to assist the non-working grand mother in with whatever way. I went as far as almost blackmailing my colleagues to up their contributions and it was very rewarding.
Today is my first day of seeing the child since being discharged from hospital. It was an exciting surprise, more so seeing how well he looked. I felt a sense of reward. The professional calling to serve humanity, including in matters of death are carried out within busy schedules, in so much that there is no personal reflection on the impact of one's work. Other times, after routine things are done to save a life, the recipients leave healthy and their path never crosses one's path again! Today was an exception. For me, I draw inspiration from moments like today's.
Safe to say, it is a privilege to be of assistance to any one, especially if it is within scope of one's duty. I am full of gratitude for the opportunities I have had so.
PS. To my non-doctor readers, pardon my jargons. Sometimes there are no colloquial words to describe the gravity of medical stuff.
No comments:
Post a Comment