The Gift of Clarity

I believe that there is a Supreme consciousness. You can call it by whatever name makes you comfortable, God, Jehovah, Allah, etc. It is all the same being. I believe that we receive gifts from this "Being" every day, we just don't recognize them as such. Oftentimes, the gift is presented as a problem we must work through or a failure of our best layed plans. It is from these adversities that the opportunity for learning presents itself. Before I start sounding like a cheesy motivational speaker, let me share a time in my life that became one of the best gifts I have ever received. It is the gift of clarity.

Throughout my career in Clinical Laboratory Medicine, I have had the opportunity to interact with many people at a particularly trying time in their lives. I have sung to premature infants in the Neonatal ICU because they were crying. I have held the hands of AIDS patients as they suffer through the final stages of the disease. I have listened to the jumbled, confused stories of Alzheimer's patients. Several times, I have felt anger towards mentally ill patients who come in with half hearted suicide attempts, draining the resources of the ER away from people who were there for actual emergencies. I always felt like these things were part of my job and, in a way, I was honored to be a part of each patient's life, no matter how brief.

One morning, after a horrible night shift, I went to the ICU to get several blood samples on a terminally ill patient in his late '70's. I was tired, grouchy, and hungry. There had been no time for lunch, no time for snacking, no time for anything. We had several trauma cases come through the ER that night and even a DOA from a car accident. I was so, so, so very tired. When I got to the ICU, I went in to the patient's room. He was asleep, as he should be at 5am. As the hospital policy dictated, I tried to wake him and tell him about the procedure I was about to perform on him. He was unresponsive so I proceeded to prepare to draw his blood. I drew his blood and as I put the pressure bandage on his arm, I felt a cold slap on my forearm. His hand was on my arm. His fingers were blue and cold, his fingernails needed trimming and were yellow tinged. He scared the daylights out of me. About that time, his eyes met mine and he said in a clear voice, "Am I going to die?". For what felt like hours, I just looked at him unable to say anything. After a few seconds, my eyes filled up with tears and I said to him, "I don't know, honey." His gaze was so penetrating that I couldn't think of anything else to say to him. He just rolled over on his side and went back into his little world where he had resided for that last few days. I was shell shocked and felt guilty for not saying something more professional. It is common for patients to have "moments of clarity" before dying. They could be unresponsive and then, out of nowhere, open their eyes and start talking. That's what I had just experienced with this patient.

He died the next day with his family all around him.

I think of this moment in my life often. When things become difficult, I always flash back to that cold morning in ICU. In many ways, I feel that this was a gift from God. A shocking moment of clarity that brings everything else back into focus. I'm lucky to be alive, lucky to have a family, lucky that I can breathe unassisted by machines, and lucky to know everyday is a miracle.