At around 10pm, we got the call for a transfer. Apparently this guy was supposed to go home the next day, but he started having difficulty breathing and coughing up blood. A chest x-ray showed a complete white-out of the left lung. Basically it was filled with blood.
We calmly told him we were going to take him to the ICU. We were also going to insert a breathing tube into his good lung to help him out. We called a surgical team to alert them that he might need to have a blood vessel tied to stop the bleeding.
Things were going well until the next morning, when he coded in his room. The nurse jumped on him to start CPR. My resident started throwing out orders. We gave him meds, continued CPR... did everything we could. His wife ran in and held onto me. We finally got his heart to beat, but it would only beat with help from machines.
The rest of the family arrived along with a priest. The final decision was made to take him off the machine. I was doing well until the wife looked at me. Then I teared up. I couldn't imagine what they were going through. "He was supposed to go home today" was all they could say.
They all left, heads down. I stayed to document the events. The other doctors were visibly upset too, but sadly this is the reality of the ICU... it's the reality of medicine. I'd say I handled it pretty well... but I'm very thankful that I will only have to deal with it for a year.
In radiology I interact with images.
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