Family LIFE
A Doctor’s Story:
The Reason WHY
FLU KILLS SOME
and NOT ALL!
BY OCEANROCK WELLNESS
D
uring my senior year of
residency, I happened to
be rotating through the
Medical Respiratory ICU (Intensive
Car Unit) at Virginia Commonwealth
University (VCU - a huge tertiary care
center) in the heart of Richmond,
Virginia. As part of my responsibili-
ties, I would rotate taking ‘call’ (being
responsible for accepting new patients)
every four days. Our ‘calls’ would last
24 hours straight with only a slight
chance of catching a nap, if we were
lucky. I recall coming into work one
day bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. I took
the on-call pager from
my colleague who was
more than relieved
to hand over the call
pager. Not too long
after taking the pager,
it went off (there went
my time for morning
tea). The first call
came from a fellow
resident who was tak-
ing care of a patient
on the medical ward.
He was concerned that
his patient, let’s call
her Debra, wasn’t look-
ing so well. Debra had
been admitted due to difficulty breath-
ing. She had a history of Asthma,
and despite the medical teams’ best
efforts, she was not responding and was
still experiencing breathing difficul-
ties. When I went to see Debra she
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BERMUDA PARENT MAGAZINE
was sitting on her bed; she was sitting
upright because laying back was too
uncomfortable. Although she was talk-
ing to me, her sentences were short-
ened and her breathing was labored.
Other than her breathing she appeared
quite normal. She was middle aged and
slightly reminded me of my mother
with her medium brown complexion
and petite build. I
convinced Debra that
we should monitor her
closely, which would
mean transferring her
to the ICU. She was
agreeable but I could
tell she was anxious and
nervous about the idea.
To ease her anxiety, I
assured her that I would
stay with her while we
moved her to the ICU.
When we arrived in
the ICU, I discussed her
case with my attending
and we both agreed that
she was working too hard to breath and
that her increased anxiety would likely
tire her out, threatening respiratory fail-
ure if we didn’t intervene soon. Debra
was informed that she would need to
be placed on a ventilator, a machine
that would do the breathing for her,
but would also require placing her in a
medically-induced coma. I remember
her eyes being full of fear as I did my
best to reassure her. I explained that
it was a standard procedure and most
people did fine, and that for some, it
had even saved their lives. She agreed.
It didn’t take long to sedate her and
place her on the breathing machine. At
this point, things were going smoothly,
just as anticipated. Then bam, the
unexpected happened! Within min-
utes, her blood pressure and heart rate
started plummeting. Systematically, I
started checking the ventilator, breath-
ing tube, her drips, her heart, and her
lungs. Nothing seemed amiss yet her
heart rate continued to nose-dive until
nothing....no pulse. I looked up on the
heart monitor… complete flat line. She
was coding. I instructed the nurse to
call CODE BLUE. Within seconds, in
rushed the rest of my attendings and
colleagues who were helping to cover
the ICU. I was glad to have the help
with orchestrating the chest compres-
sion and the medications to restart
her heart whilst also trying to figure
out why her heart stopped in the first
place so we could reverse the cause.
Ten minutes of chest compressions