His Name is Mac

After taking report, all I could think was “dear God, this poor man. He had a heart attack and was down for a while. Help me help him." He was unable to breathe on his own, totally unresponsive, and had these body twitches thought to be a result of anoxic injury. I walked in to examine him and, after taking a deep breath, said “Hi! My name is Eileen. I’m your nurse. I’m going to take care of you.” No reaction. I checked his pupils and they were reactive. That’s good, I thought.

After a while visitors came to see my patient. “His name is Mac. He was at his wife’s funeral when he went down.They were married over 40 years and were inseparable.” I’m sure someone told me about the funeral during report but that was the first time it registered. Poor man, I thought. “He’s a little hard of hearing, too” his visitor said. The next time I talked with Mac I got close to his ear and softly said “Mac, it’s me, Eileen, your nurse. Your friends came to see you today. You’re doing OK. You can’t talk yet because you have a tube in your mouth. Feel my hand? I’m holding your hand. You’re going to be OK.” I’d say this over and over, every chance I had between drip titration, all day long. Maybe he might hear me.

This went on for the next few days, me speaking to Mac usually with no response, once in a while a twitch in response. One day I went through my usual  “Hi Mac. How are you? It’s Eileen, your nurse. You’re OK. You’re going to be OK.” This time he twitched after I said it and I thought I saw movement around his eyes. “Mac, can you hear me? Open your eyes.” The muscles around his eyes moved and I got all excited. For the next few hours I went through my routine, “Hi Mac. Open your eyes for me.” Finally about 8 hours after the first muscle movement around his eyes, he opened his eyes. “Mac, look over here” but Mac didn’t look over and couldn’t focus…..yet.  After a couple more hours Mac could look my way. “Squeeze my hand Mac” and he did. I ran to get the unit fellow. “Watch. You got to see this” I said. Mac was following simple commands.

After that I was off on vacation. By the time I came back, Mac was gone. In the craziness of my unit I forgot about Mac. One day, the unit clerk told me someone was looking for me. “He said he was your patient.” When I went to the desk, there was a big man standing tall waiting for me. “Eileen? I’m Mac. You took care of me when I was here. I was out for a few days. I don’t remember much but I remember hearing your voice telling me I would be OK. I wanted to thank you.”

Everything came back to me, Mac’s condition, his wife’s death, and his amazing recovery and tears came to my eyes. I remembered why I became a nurse.