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The IV bag was empty and Kamila couldn't get her hands to stop shaking long enough to hang a new one.
"Code blue, room 314. Code blue, room 314." The announcement grated over the hospital loudspeakers for the third time in two minutes, and she was still just standing there like an idiot, glaring at the tubing in her hands as if it was written in a foreign language.
Mr. Graham had just been talking to her about his grandson's baseball game five minutes ago. Now the monitors were screaming and his chest wasn't moving and there were way too many people crowding into the room and she couldn't--
"Kamila."
She turned. Next to her, Bethany Clark was already donning gloves. Bethany had been working ICU for fifteen years and still managed to look like she'd just walked off the set of a scrubs ad. Every hair in place, even when everything else was falling apart.
"I can't-- the IV won't--" The plastic tubing slipped through her sweaty palms again.
"Don't worry about it," Bethany said to her, taking the IV from her without fuss. "Get the crash cart."
The problem with code blues is they're loud. The monitors beeping, people shouting numbers and medication names, the whine of the defibrillator charging. Yet somehow, Bethany's voice cut through it all, clear and steady. She was doing chest compressions now, repeating the count under her breath, while Dr. Laura attempted to get a better airway.
Kamila wheeled the crash cart around, knocking it into the foot of the bed since her depth perception had apparently gone on a coffee break. She'd practiced this a hundred times in nursing school. A hundred times. But Mr. Graham's face was turning blue and nothing seemed the same as it had in the simulation lab.
"Epi, one milligram," Dr. Laura directed.
Kamila reached for the medication drawer and her badge wouldn't scan. Of course it wouldn't. She tried again, hands shaking so badly she could barely hold the thing steady.
"Here." Bethany stood beside her, though she'd been doing compressions a secondbefore. When had Dr. Laura taken over? Time was wreaking havoc, speeding up and slowing down like a broken clock. Bethany's badge beeped and the drawer slid open. "Second row, third vial."
Kamila grabbed it, nearly dropped it, grabbed it again. The syringe looked huge in her hands, like she was trying to perform surgery with a baseball bat.
"Draw it up to the one CC mark," Bethany said, positioning herself so she stood between Kamila and the activity around Mr. Graham's bed. "You got this."
But she did not got this. The needle entered at an angle and she was forced to start over, precious seconds ticking by while Mr. Graham's heart lay still and silent. Her scrubs were sweating and she could feel her breakfast attempting to reappear.
"I'm gonna mess this up," she whispered.
Bethany took the syringe from her hands. "No, you're not. You're learning. There's a difference."
She injected the epinephrine herself, quick and efficient, then handed the empty syringe back to Kamila. "Trash it."
Such a simple task. Throwing away a syringe. But Kamila's hands were steadier now, and she managed to get it into the sharps container without stabbing herself or anyone else.
"Get me another," Bethany commanded. "Same dose."
This time Kamila's badge registered on the first attempt. The needle entered straight in. She drew up the medication to the precise correct mark and had it ready before Bethany needed to request it.
The monitors changed their tune. Rather than the flat, continuous beep that indicated nothing, there was a cadence.
"We got him back," Dr. Laura announced, and the room collectively sighed. People started to move away from the bed, turning off equipment, cleaning up the mess that always followed a successful resuscitation.
Kamila was sitting on the floor in the hall outside room 314, legs sprawled out like a rag doll. She didn't remember sitting down. The adrenaline was wearing off and her whole body felt like jelly.
Bethany came out a few minutes later, taking off her gloves. She sat down next to Kamila on the floor, which felt unprofessional but somehow just right.
"That sucked," Kamila said.
"Yeah, it did." Bethany leaned her head back against the wall. "My first code, I threw up in the medication room afterward."
"Really?"
"Yeah. Mrs. Patterson, eighty-seven years old, fell in the bathroom and broke her hip. Seemed textbook easy until she threw a blood clot to the lungs during surgery. Couldn't get the IV in, couldn't remember where anything was, couldn't even remember which end of the bag valve mask was supposed to go over her face."
Kamila looked over at her. Bethany Clark, who walked through emergencies like she was conducting a symphony, who was never, ever fazed by anything. "What happened?
"We lost her." Bethany's voice was matter-of-fact. "Not my fault, the clot was too big and she'd coded twice already before I even got into the room. But I blamed myself for months. Kept wondering if I'd been faster, better, maybe she would have made it."
"How do you... how do you get over that?"
"You don't, not really. But you do learn that it's okay to be scared. It doesn't make you a bad nurse. It makes you human." Bethany stood up, brushed off her scrubs. "Mr. Graham is looking for you, by the way."
"What? Why?"
"Because you were the last person he remembers talking to before things went wrong. He wants to know you're all right."
Kamila was able to stand. Her legs felt unsteady, but only as if she'd been sitting too long. "Is he? Will he be all right?"
"Probably. Heart attack, but we got him back fast. He'll need surgery, but his vitals are strong." Bethany started back towards the room. "You coming?"
Mr. Graham appeared smaller in the bed now, with all of the machines and monitors around him. His skin was pale but his eyes were alert when Kamila approached.
"There's my nurse," he said, his voice raspy from the breathing tube. "I heard you helped save my life."
"I didn't do anything," Kamila started to say, but Bethany caught her eye and slightly shook her head.
"Don't sweat it, kid. You did fine."
The words carry more weight coming from Mr. Graham. Not so much as advice or comfort, but as truth.
"Tell me more about Jasper's baseball season," She said.
"I believe I fell asleep before I got to the part about the championship game."
Therefore, Kamila pulled up a chair to get an account of nine-year-old Jasper Graham's grand slam in the ninth inning bottom, on how the team had partied at Pizza Palace afterward, on how proud his grandfather had been in the stands watching. As he talked, her hands stopped shaking, and by the time Mr. Graham fell asleep, she almost felt like a real nurse again.
Bethany was standing in the hallway waiting for her. "Better?"
"Yeah. I think so." Kamila looked back towards the room. "Will it always be like that? The first few times?"
"Not always. But sometimes, and that's okay." Bethany handed her a fresh scrub top. "You'll want to change before your next patient. Trust me."
Kamila looked down at herself. Her shirt was damp with sweat and there was a small stain of Mr. Graham's blood on the hem. She'd been so occupied with watching everything else, she hadn't even noticed.
"Bethany?"
"Yeah?"
"Thanks for, you know… taking over when I couldn't."
"That's what we do. We watch each other's backs until we can all stand on our own." Bethany grinned. "Besides, you didn't need taking over. You needed steadying. Big difference."
