Running Stitch

“Surgery and the Opioid Epidemic.” Healthline, Healthline Media, www.healthline.com/health-news/how-surgery-helped-fuel-the-opioid-epidemic.

As I sewed up the elderly gentleman, I held my breath as the last stitch went in. It was a tradition, a superstition wishing him good luck. Heart transplants were risky surgeries, but vital to ensure the patient’s survival. This one had been waiting for his brand new heart for months.

“Well done, team. Get some rest. It’s been a quiet evening: never a good sign,” I reminded my surgical staff. Another hospital superstition.

I walked briskly along the corridor, hungry for another surgery. Patients lay peacefully asleep; the few nurses on call walked unhurriedly, a perfect evening for them. But I felt apprehensive. Suddenly, my pager buzzed against my hip: an emergency in the pit. I jogged downstairs towards the ER. The mood of the hospital had shifted dramatically. Residents and interns sprinted towards supply rooms, barking orders at each other; nurses paged the hospital staff that weren’t on duty. My eagerness to perform another operation changed to unease. An opportunity to learn new techniques and save a life was one thing. However, a tragedy was nothing to be excited about.

My eyes fell upon a middle-aged woman lying on a stretcher. Her torn clothes were covered in blood, and a thin piece of metal poked out of her skin, impaling her chest. Her eyes were closed, and her breath was ragged and uneven.

It was my sister, Ellie.

“Oh my God! Ellie! Help! I need some help over here!” I yelled desperately. Everyone was occupied with their own patients.

“Nurse! Who else is on call?” I asked Nurse Allen.

“You’re the only on-call attending. The rest are on their way,” she answered in a rush.

“Book an emergency OR. Whichever room is untaken,” I instructed her.

I wheeled my sister into the OR and began the extensive surgery. The metal had thankfully missed Ellie’s heart and other major organs, but one small twitch from either of us could be deadly. I carefully slid the piece out of her chest, exactly the route it entered in order to prevent more damage from being done. Blood started running from the hole in her chest, but we didn’t have enough blood on hand to replace it. She was running out of time.

The heart rate monitor started beeping furiously. Ellie’s heart pulse was slowing.

“Come on, El!” I encouraged as I operated, blood flowing profusely from the wounds.

Flatline. The sharp, constant beep blared.

“Nurse! Get the defibrillator!” I cried at Nurse Allen. She set up the paddles and handed them to me.

“Charge to 300. Clear!” No change. “Charge to 400. Clear!”

“We’ve got a pulse.” Nurse Allen told me, relieved. I breathed a sigh of relief and quickly closed her up.

A few hours later, my pager buzzed furiously as I lay asleep in the on-call room. It was a code blue: someone was in need of immediate resuscitation. I leaped out of bed and sprinted to the room the page was from. But I arrived just in time to here Nurse Allen calling time of death. I glanced at the patient.

Ellie was being zipped up in a large, black bag. Her body was pale and very dead. I sunk to the floor outside her room, breaking down into sobs. Tears ran down my cheeks, and the last thing I remember hearing was Dr. Harrison’s affirmation:

“She would have made it. She was healthy, and the metal didn’t puncture any organs. But whoever operated on her used a running stitch instead of Cushing sutures, so she bled to death. Some idiot intern, I’ll bet. That’s what did her in.”