not quite getting it

I just discharged a youngish man who had literally been without a heartbeat for about 20 minutes by the time he was admitted to me.

This was one week after his first heart attack. He had been down for 5 minutes without a pulse before his wife remembered how to dial a telephone. Down close to 10 minutes before EMS arrived and CPR commenced.

The first five days we didn't think he would survive the day.

The next five days we didn't believe he had any real chance of meaningful neurologic recovery.

Three days after that he seemed to have some brain function but developed acute respiratory distress and we doubted we'd ever be able to get him off the vent breathing on his own.

Four days after that? Breathing tube gone, sitting up in bed, talking, no neurologic deficits whatsoever, doing pushups and situps in the bed whenever the nurse was looking the other way.

I mean, a straight up miracle.

And through it all, his wife sat at his bedside 24 hours a day, slept sitting up in a hard-backed chair, woken every hour for his vital sign checks, not leaving to eat, keeping the tv on the channels he liked, rubbing his feet and arms when they got swollen, filling out piles of insurance forms for him. She did not leave his side.

This morning I walked in and, as usual, asked if he had had any problems overnight:

"Well, I'm thinking about leaving my wife, I'm just not sure about that woman. Something shady about her."


Sometimes I give up.