(continued from page 9)
CHANGES WITH PARENTHOOD
Brian Ferguson, DO
A
s health care providers, our job is
taking care of other people’s hus-
bands, wives, sons and daughters.
Being married certainly can add perspective
to this, and undoubtedly offers support during
those rough nights, regrettable decisions and
senseless losses we have all witnessed, in a
city plagued by violence and prolific drug
abuse. Likewise, being a parent offers insight into the feelings of
family members, sitting patiently beside their sons and daughters
in the ED: their frustrations, their griefs, their fears, their joys and
their losses. To someone who has never raised an infant, it makes
little logical sense why anyone would bring a stable RSV’er to the
emergency room. However, to someone with a four-month-old,
every congested breath and every wheeze is terrifying.
I am the new father to a beautiful baby boy, and admittedly,
after every ER shift, I strip, shower and hand sterilize with alcohol
before I dare get near him; and may be a bit obsessed about others
hand-washing around him. Fortunately for my little Connor, he had
no fevers and therefore no LPs, no RSV and no Flu, no problems
feeding and is gaining weight well. From the ER perspective, wit-
nessing all the treacherous happenings to little ones as they grow,
brings both an innate sense of gratitude and sometimes an even
greater sense of fear with every sniffle and mishap that Connor
offers me. This gratitude realized is tempered by the loss of other
children in our ER who are loved equally as much, who are sick
or victims of trauma and will never improve. I am thankful for the
health and wellbeing of my own, but since becoming a father I feel
a new sadness for those that aren’t. Now, when I do LPs, I cannot
help but think about the fear of the mom, something I addressed
10
LOUISVILLE MEDICINE
discussing the procedure in the past, but quickly disregarded after
consent was signed.
Leaving for work in the morning has changed too. When I drive
in, I am thankful to be going to a job, a job that I know will be there
the next morning. I feel a new strength for my son, that I need to
do a good job, that I need to be a good doctor, as his name is my
name and when able, I want him to feel pride in what his father does.
When I see mothers at work, I cannot help but feel a deep-rooted
respect for their sacrifice. Fathers help at home during those early
months, but few would disagree that it is the mother running the
ship. I cannot imagine how my colleagues are able to keep their
resident schedules while breast-feeding and pumping. I find this
sheerly amazing.
It was hard to leave home before, and harder now, but it is even
better to be home. Ironically, when I am home, I tend to dwell on
work a bit more than before. Soon after Connor was born, I met a
young mother of two small children who had overdosed on heroin.
She was found down, in asystole, yet she was warm and was subse-
quently resuscitated on scene by an emergency medicine attending
and a current EM resident that happened to be there with EMS. She
presented to Room 9 with compressions ongoing. We intermittently
did compressions followed by intensive care with multiple pressor
agents, and for two hours she would regain pulses and would inter-
mittently lose them again. I would leave the trauma bay periodically
to update family. Eventually, it became clear she was not going to
maintain a pulse. I went back to the family room to update family,
bringing their emotional rollercoaster to a heart-wrenching end.
Telling them their beloved, previously healthy family member was
not going to make it was hard—it always is. Her mother, father,