Letter Number 11: To the ladies.

This is for the girls who were always treated as an option and never a priority.

Here’s to the silence you keep when it’s easier to whine about how badly your day went because some pretty girls obnoxiously ripped your self-image apart. Here’s to your fragile hearts that got broken over someone whom you never even dated. Here’s to the late night studying on a Friday night when everyone else is out partying.

This is in honor of the girls who were used as bridges to build relationship between couples, when she couldn’t even build a love story of her own. The girls who would rather be behind curtains than risk being laughed at on spotlight. The girls who were simply told they were not good enough. The girls who would starve themselves to death because society called them fat, or because their boyfriends replaced them with someone they could never measure up with. For the girls who’ve been used, rejected, laughed at.

Solitude has always been your sanctuary. A place where you feel safe but unhappy, secured but not loved. I’m not gonna give you false reassurances because that’s not what I am here to do. I give you hope, not by saying the world’s gonna change; but I give you hope by saying one day you’ll be forever changed by everything you had been through. One day, you will look back and realize that thanks to the tragedies you’ve had, you become what you are now: a far better individual that you once were. Wait patiently. Beginnings can be rough, but you’ll see that God will give you an ending more beautiful than you could ever imagine.


Sincerely yours,
Me. 

Letter Number 10: To Rachel

I held you in my arms at 2:35 am. As soon as the ER nurse called your admission, I began my distress. “For standby intubation,” –these are the words most dreaded by any nurse who knows how to read beyond doctor’s orders.  In medical world, that basically translates into “you have a few hours to live.”

Yet I stood there, hoping you were a miracle.

You were breathing heavily, too rapidly, and the oxygen support didn’t seem to be of much sustenance at all. In fact, your O₂ Sat was 9 digits low. Again, I began my uneasiness. I laid you under close watch service, on the first bed where I could see you from the nurse’s station.

I’m sorry you had to share a bed with another patient. I couldn’t risk placing you on the farther side of the ward, in case…you know, something bad happens. You need to be attended every hour. You were high-maintenance, and though I had 21 other patients last night, you pretty much consumed my 8-hour shift.

Your chart wasn’t modest of your condition. It read: Pneumonia very severe s/p colostomy 2010, Down Syndrome.  You had, not just one, not just two, but three diagnoses. First problem was that your airway was clogged with mucus, which explains the little oxygen circulating in your body. Second, you weren’t blessed with an orifice on your rectum so in 2010, they had attached a “poo-bag” for you. That, by the way, increased your risk for infection. And third, you were born with chromosomal aberration.  

Am I now sounding too technical for you? Don’t worry. You don’t have to understand these things at such a young age. All you had to do was fight your battle. You carry a deadweight much heavier than you can endure but you lay there with your eyes closed, looking tranquil in sleep. Were you dreaming of heaven, Rachel? I guess I will never know.

Your mother was kind, and so is your grandmother. They amenably did what I asked them to do and they never left your side. But at around 4 in the morning, your vitals started deteriorating. Your O₂ Sat fluctuated from 90 to 64 to 85. Your heart was pounding for the lack of oxygenated blood, and on top of that, you were having a hyperthermia.

Nebulization every two hours began and we suctioned your secretions after that. Did you feel any bettering? Your vitals expressed no, but only you can best judged what you had felt. Just one more hour and you will be surviving my shift. I put away the emergency cart since you didn’t look like you were going to have a cardiac arrest within my duty. But in the midst of the endorsement, 30 minutes passed my shift, your mother came running and said something I could barely understand. But no words needed for that, because as soon as I saw her face, I knew. I jumped on my feet, grabbed the stethoscope and rushed your way.

When I reached you Rachel, you were no longer gasping for air. I placed the stet on your chest and heard nothing. The pulse oximeter now reads 0 0 – negative for oxygen and negative for pulse rate. I immediately called your physician, and while on his way, I grabbed the emergency cart that I just put away. I didn’t notice how malnourished you were until we had to stripped you off your clothing and do chest compression. I could do a mental count, not only of your ribs, but as well as your intercoastal spaces. That’s how skeletal you were. I injected Epi in your system to start the heart pumping, but not even a flutter could be heard. Your O₂ was now on full blast, but we were the ones doing the breathing for you.

Last try, another dose of Epi was ordered. But you were still a flat line.

At 7:45 am Rachel, your doctor pronounced you dead. I started returning everything that I had put out for you: the pulse oximeter, the nebulizer, the suction machine, the E-cart, and the O₂ tank. None of these equipment were strong enough to fight a much bigger force.

You fought a hard battle, Rachel. Now it’s time for you to continue living in your dreams.


Sincerely yours,
Your Pedia Nurse