Invisible Nurses

Dressed in my ebay Brooks Brothers dotted navy silk skirt and rust-colored silk sweater for clinicals, sitting quietly in xray rounds at the back of the room, two floors up with the medicine docs. Code pager goes off. Everyone goes for the pagers.
"It's the code pager," one snorts, a little guy with gel spiked hair and a chiva. "Probably SI."
"5 codes yesterday."
"Yeah, and every time they called us the damn nurse told us we weren't needed."
Narrow faced blonde resident: "Then they shouldn't fucking page us if they don't need us."
I think back to yesterday afternoon, and remember her (suprisingly, given my facility with faces) leaning against the sink during the code, as we tripped over her trying to get to the med box. Interesting that no one recognized me as the damn nurse. No one looks at nurses.
5 codes. On the same patient. Wiz covered with blood and shit. We'd get her back, then we'd lose her. Then we'd get her back. The family was in the room the whole time. Came suddenly, with no warning. Sweet little old lady, squeezing my hand and smiling, waking up from surgery. Started to give her a unit of blood, making pleasant conversation with the family, who were just chatting, chatting, I watched her blood pressure plummet after a few minutes--20 points systolic--not awful, but not good
"Excuse me," I say, politely, and feel that weird slow calm coming that always happens when things are about to get really bad.
Finally, after 4 hours of this, the family had had enough.
"I can't stand this," her husband says. "I just can't stand this."
Death takes hours. It takes more paperwork to die than it does to get a student loan. There's a checklist and a certificate and the medical examiner, and all the signatures, and washing and bagging the body, and the funeral home, and people flying in who want to see the body, and calling in the social worker on call, because the VA won't let them in on their own into the morgue--you wouldn't believe the amount of detail work that goes into coding someone 5 times and then closing their chart. Our new nurse, Patricia, who is a little inept, but tries really hard, is doggedly HELPING me each step of the way. "Sit down. Eat some yogurt. I have organic. You need to take care of you." Helps me wash and bag the body. As we're about to zip the bag up, I reflexively feel her carotid. Is that a pulse?
It's happened to me once. A 17 year old girl. Blue line pulsing in her neck as we were about to bag her. Coded her again. Lost her.
"Patty, do you feel a pulse?"
Patty places her hand on her neck, then her femoral artery. "No, no pulse."
I suddenly feel as if I'm going to start crying.
"I think I feel a pulse. Excuse me."
Sometimes, after these things, I think I go a little crazy. Not in a way I can immediately perceive. But I know that I'm not right.
I go get Wiz.
Wiz has been weird since he came back. He's very quiet. He hasn't made eye contact with me or spoken to me personally at all. He doesn't even return my 'good morning.' When he tells me things, it's in short, polite, informational sentences. It's been a little strange and lonely. He's a lot thinner and paler and his hair is too fuzzy. I don't know what's up.
I walk into the patient's room where Wiz is on the other side of the unit. He turns around right away and holds my hand, like I'm a little kid.
"What is it?"
"Please come tell me my patient's dead."
"Ok."
We walk back to the room holding hands. He checks the pulses, carotid, femoral.
"I felt a pulse." I explain.
"I know. But she doesn't have one."
"She's dead?"
He checks her all over, like my dad would do, going through the closets and under the bed when I was little.
"She's dead."
"It's ok to put her in the shroud?"
"Yes. It's ok, Haley. She's not here anymore. No, you're not crazy."
Then he goes out of the room.
Patty looks at me. "I just love you," she says. "Please don't ever stop working here. Because I really like you as a person, and I really like working with you."
"Thank you for the yogurt."
We bag her. I clean the blood on the floor with H2O2.
We're there late, going over the code sheets, putting the code carts back together (we went through 7 drug boxes) catching up on charting. Marcy helps me. We walk out together and find Wiz lying on the couch in the break room, head back over the arm rest, singing Uriah Heap.
"You ok?"I ask.
"I'm covered in shit and blood. My legs are all gritty when I walk, and they rub together in this weird way."
"Should remind you of your club days in Minneapolis" I say
"That's why they call me 'boy.'"
"That is not why they call you 'boy.'"
"Call no man a fool." He says.
"Call no man raca. But can you call them a fucking idiot?"
"Your halloween ok?"
"No. "
"Figured. What'd she pull?"
Halie.
"Costume problems?"
He nods and smiles. "Did it involve spandex?"
"How did you know? Cat suit unitard. No bra. Little fluffy tail."
"You know, this is just about them--it's still their fight and you're just in the middle, right? They don't even see you."
"I know."
"People are viciously self-centered. Rapaciously attached to their own self-interest."
Marcy and I are both standing over him. Tired blood little Wiz.
"What are you guys talking about?" Marcy asks.
That's my 1/2 hour.

Marcy