Jack and Jill went up a hill

During the day, the chaplains take shifts holding the on-call pager for about 2 hours usually. It was exactly 5 minutes until I was to hand off the pager to the next person for his turn. It had been silent for me during my hours with that evil beeper on my belt. Until, my streak of silence was broken. A phone number came through. I called and spoke with the RN on the line.

"One of the surgeons wants you to come to room 948 with him." "Okay," I said, "can you tell me more about it?" "Sure," she said, "his patient expired during surgery, and he's heading up to inform the family." I knew that the work I had planned to get done that evening was now not going to happen.

The way hospitals work, it is very rare for someone to actually die during surgery. If someone is too ill, doctors will simply refuse to perform the surgery saying it's too risky (which, of course, it is), or if a patient begins to go down hill during a surgery he/she is stitched back up and sent to the ICU.

Arriving a few minutes before the surgeon, I found the RN and learned that the husband (we'll call this couple Jack and Jill) was in the room expecting his wife to be through with her procedure about now. Jack and Jill were in their mid-30s and had to young children, 3 and 4 years old. That changes things.

An entourage of about 5 people wearing light blue scrubs, hair nets and shoe coverings came onto the nursing unit. The OR staff was here. The RN and I followed them in as we crowded the room in which only Jack was present. He immediately knew something was wrong.

The doctor broke the news quickly like a machine reading a script, ending with the formal line, "...and despite our best efforts, we were unable to save her. I'm sorry for your loss." Shock. Denial. Anger. All three struck Jack at once. Then tears. Pain and numbness seemed to mix together to form an emotional concoction of surreal-ness. There's no right or easy way to do this.

Finding the breath that had been taken from him by the news, Jack asked, "What happened?" And then, I think the doctor realized that it was not only Jack's loss. The surgeon suddenly stopped being a doctor. Something changed in his voice. He told Jack they were trying to intubate her but couldn't get the tube past the mass in here trachea. They brought in experts at intubation. "I tried. He tried. We all tried, but we just couldn't..." His voiced choked up, and tears filled the eyes behind the doc's glasses. The anesthesiologist, a younger looking doctor, spoke up sharing that the medicine was right, but Jill wasn't getting enough air. They tried for 30 minutes to save her, to bring her back. But the couldn't. His face was beat red trying to suppress his emotion.

I looked at Jack. He was broken. I looked at the medical staff in the room. They were hurting. I passed out tissues to everyone there. Heads were hanging, bodies were slumped, and I realized that though these people were only recent acquaintances, they were all hurting over Jill's death. My heart broke for all of them.

Jack called his family. These phone calls are always the hardest to make. The grand parents arrived with Jack and Jill's two darling children, an angelic 4-year old girl wearing pink sweats clomping around in little black shin high snow boots, and a 3 year old boy with a toy airplane and head he was almost grown into. The boy was a little too young, but the girl knew something wasn't right. When she entered the hospital room she asked where her mommy was. And like swords plunged by an expert musketeer, those words pierced at the hearts of daddy and grandparents. And as with Jack, there is no right or easy way to do this.

They talked to her about grandpa's old dog that got old and then went to be with God. Just like uncle Joe got sick and went to be with God. "Mommy also got very sick and had to go be with God." She didn't completely understand, but she knew things weren't right. She knew she couldn't see her mommy. Two of the OR staff had remained, one was the doctor. They stood back and cried silently with other family members as this little sweet girl's big brown eyes filled with fear and uncertainty. These children's lives had just changed forever.

I spent over two hours with the family and staff. I offered tissues, hugs, consoling hands on shoulders and backs, I contacted Child Life Development to get some resources to the family, I stood outside with Jack as he smoked a much needed Swisher Sweet cigar, I held elevator doors, trash cans and offered water to Jack after he vomited in the toilet. I've come to a point where I do not need to cry during tragedies like this, but my heart breaks no less. I am grateful to have witnessed and acknowledged their pain and to have journeyed with them for a brief time. My prayers and sympathies go out to the newly single parent Jack and his two beautiful children, daily reminders of his precious Jill.