What keeps us away from the brink that is triage is the number of people who are dying in our ICUs. I have had to show them that though not yet dead they will never get better. I have extinguished their hope. I have had to console their children, and bear their partner’s rage.
This responsibility I bear without anger. It’s always been part of the profession, but we can all survive a little dose of poison. Right? It is the confessions that break me. The vignettes of banal failings that I identify with, that I could have easily been complicit in.
“She was so busy with the kids”
“He was working two jobs …”
“His friends had told him otherwise.”
“His doctor was unsure.”
Yes, now in retrospect it all seems so obvious, but I take little solace in the regrets of the survivors. Especially when I dutifully memorize the last words of those who never get that luxury as I pass the tube into their lungs.
Let me be clear. There are very few evil people out there. Seeing your mortality purifies most souls, but in their lucid moments, they all cry. Most express regret. They all want an opportunity to go back and make their amends.
If I could channel these confessions and light your path with their realization I would. If I could extract the agony of their families and rend it into wisdom I would give it away for free.
Yet these things are beyond me. Beyond my colleagues. It seems trite to repeat the same words over and over again, but perhaps this is the moment that you are thinking about your child, or your mother. Perhaps your armour it gapped. Perhaps this is when the seed takes root.
Please take this amazing remedy. Get vaccinated for those who love you. So that we do not have to break their hearts when we ask them,
“What would he want us to do if we cannot cure him?”
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