Breathing gets harder, even i know that.

I look down and count my fingers.

Still ten.

I look sidewards and in my mind, i hear brandy singing and memories of bittersweet conversations replay themselves over and over again, in stark defiance to the owner's plea to stop it. Stop. Edit. Erase.

Hey louise. Bary says. I need your help down here. My junior brings me back to reality. We've been trying for days now to get this patient and his family to come to the reality that he is dying, that no amount of cpr or blood pressure improvers would help him.

What's the problem again? I ask Bary.

Well you know, if it comes to the point where he needs to be resuscitated, you know, shock , aftificial breathing machine and all, he wants everything done, we could do it but it would be futile.

Have you told the family about this?

Yes. And they are impossible to talk to. I talked. My senior talked. My attending talked. The nurse talked. Everyone for the past week and nothing! They won't budge.


Alright, I'm coming down. I talked with the ICU attending and he basically told me he won't recommend ICU on this patient. If he codes, there is nothing you can do. I can't cure a dead liver. Make them realize that.

I go down the hallway and memories of dead loved ones come to mind. Uncle boy, who bled inside his brain, i was there when he had seizures and when they put down a breathing tube. I was there to bring sense to something insensible. I was there when my nephew suffered irreversible brain damage for not being able to breathe because of asthma. I was there when they put him on a coffin.

And everything i could remember... The consequences that i've rendered... It's been awhile but i could still remember... why must i feel this way? Just make things go away.

You see the hospital is not just a place where i work. It's a familiar place for me. It's where I saved some strangers' lives, and lost the lives of the people i love. It represents the choices i made in life. It's a strange position to be able to save someone and not those dear to you. But i get up everyday fueled by this strange sense of feeling that maybe i could make a difference. Maybe i could make someone else live long enough for them to share one last smile, to make those last amends, to say i love you for the last time, to say hello again. To cry, to laugh again.

I go down and look for the wife. I look at her eyes. They were the same questioning eyes my aunt had when my uncle was dying. Confused. Tired. Helpless. Hopeful.

And it broke my heart again. For the nth time i keep telling myself not to be involved. My strength and my weakness.

I look at her and say the words i pray i would never hear in my lifetime.

A lump forms in my throat.

I'm sorry to have met you under these circumstances ma'am.

My name is doctor G. And i have no good news to you. I am from the ICU and i am telling you the reality. My job, the very reason why i am here, is to save lives. That's it. But it is also my job to tell you, the family, when we have come to the point that this is futile. I would like to paint a rosy picture to you but it wouldn't be fair to you. It wouldn't be fair to your husband.

And so with that, i was thrown back into yesterday. To a time when i should have said those words. To a time when i should have had more courage to say that we are losing to Hades here. I guess it was because she felt i knew what she was going through. Maybe she saw that i once also had to make a decision like that. She looked at me and told me she understood. And with that, what a team of doctors couldn't do for a week, I was able to do in an hour.

Amazing, my colleagues said. How did you do that?

I managed a weak smile. There really was no secret, it was in seeing these people, the situations, not as a job to do, but as something personal, a personal crusade. I've got scars, i thought, and they healed pretty well, but they are still there. And i am reminded bits and pieces of me when i look at these marred people.

After that talk, i went down to the coffee shop to the warm greeting of my favorite italian barista. Louise! How are you doing? She asked with her thick accent. I have missed you so much. Everyone misses you. She probably meant the cleaners whom I've befriended as well, missed me.

I've been in the other hospital for the past six months. Could you please make me my favorite cup of coffee? How's your daughter?

I sip my coffee and once again, i was back to where everything made sense. Coffee, friends, family , tragedies, lost loves, bittersweet endings, small victories. My beeper rings. New admission, please go to the ER, patient is in a crisis.

I put down my coffee.

Got to go angelina.

ER beckons.

Stop. Rewind. Pause. Edit.