My First

First kiss? First love? Fist anniversary? First job? So many happy firsts I could write about, but unfortunately I'm talking about my first code. Code blue. Code blue 90. Whatever you want to call it, my patient was breathing, and then he wasn't.

It all started last night when getting report from the dayshift nurse that our patient would be transferred to a higher level of care. 15 minutes into our shift, my dear friend, Maribel, and my boss were cleaning him up getting him ready for the move, we turned him to his side for the necessary scrub down, rolled him back and he stopped breathing. We checked for a pulse and next thing I know The Boss is yelling "Press the code button". I think someone said "we need help in here", I'm not sure, it's all a blur.

But wait, let me back up. This is a patient I had 2 nights before when he was still talking and joking around. I never liked the way he looked. My 4 years of experience as a nurse told me something just wasn't right. It wasn't if he was going to go bad (sorry, hospital lingo) but when. When I saw him that night, it was the same thing. Lets get him to the higher level of care ASAP cause that feeling was still in my gut. Before we started cleaning him up he opened his eyes, looked at me and smiled. That was the last thing he ever did. Minutes later we were cracking his rib cage with chest compressions.

When I say this was my first code, I mean this was completely and utterly my very first one. I'd never even seen CPR done on anything other than those ridiculous Red Cross dummies. How I avoided it this long, I have no idea. Maybe God was preparing something inside me. Maybe He was protecting me until He knew I was ready.

Back to the code blue button being pressed. Every nurse on the floor runs into the room. The code cart magically appears. Bells and whistles are blaring. We're deflating the bed, putting him on the backboard, and the chest compressions begin. The respiratory therapist arrives and bags the patient at the head of the bed. There is no pulse for the AED defibrillator to find. Doctors arrive. ICU nurses arrive. The chaplain arrives. Before I know it, about 20 people are jammed in the room. We're hanging liters of fluid and we start pushing all the cardiac drugs. Stuff I've never heard of (thank God for ICU nurses). One doctor stands at the foot of the bed and calls all the shots (Thank God for doctors). I actually didn't know that's how it worked; he kept track of the minutes going by for the chest compressions, he told what drugs to give, he told when to pause and check for a pulse. This went on for 55 minutes. At 20:47 my patient was pronounced dead.

I always wondered how I would handle my first code. Would I freak out and fall to pieces? Would I forget everything I was taught? Would I jump into action and go through the movements that had been practiced over and over? Thanks to my coworkers, we all jumped into action and everything that needed to be done was. I remember Maribel frantically shaving his chest so the AED pads would stick. I remember desperately searching for the code blue button which ended up being on the other side of the bed. All of us together had never rolled a patient so swiftly and smoothly before. Is was controlled chaos. When the doctors asked what happened, I actually muddled through a somewhat comprehensible background on the patient. It all worked the way it should, except the patient never came back to us.

The surreal part is I watched someone die last night, and I go on today like it never happened. I still run my errands, eat my Arby's, and play on Facebook. Someone died yet we still go on. It will never be easy watching someone take their last breath. And if it ever comes to that, I am no longer human.