Marriage (Part 2)

The orderlies took her to the surgery as James started to scrub up. Peter kept looking at him with a sense of awe that how is it possible that he seems so confident about Naomi could actually live after the surgery. Peter was the best, but even he had his doubts.

They were well past two hours in the surgery now. Everything was going stable. Naomi was given mild sedatives, so she wouldn’t feel a lot of pain, just enough to not let her sleep. James was sitting right beside her, trying to talk to her. The heart monitor was stable and Peter thought the surgery was going pretty good. Now was the time to inject the alcohol in the heart and as soon as Peter let in the first mm, Naomi literally jumped out of her bed screaming in pain. James knew this was going to happen so he tried to calm her down.

She was strapped down to the bed, James right besides her holding her hand. Peter took the next chance; he tried it again praying that she would be able to take it. Just as the alcohol touched her cardiac muscles, her BP went from stable to really high. Peter still somehow pushed the syringe a little further. BP paced to almost a dangerous level, he immediately withdrew the syringe.  

“Nurse, get ready to stitch her up” he said deciding there wasn’t much to be done now.

On the other side of the bed Naomi opened her eyes which James noticed were moist but he figured it might be from the pain she just went through. He took her hand and slowly lifted it to his lips and silently kissed her like he was saying he is there, he was still there. 

Suddenly a small, clear tear rolled down her eye and exactly the same moment the heart monitor started buzzing loudly and at a smaller interval.

Peter was amazed to see how that happened. It was as if her heart just gave up. It just stopped working. He brought in the defibrillator and ordered the nurse to charge it to a 100 V.

“CLEAR!!” he screamed and brought down the paddles to her chest. Nothing happened.

“Charge it to 200V”, he said and almost simultaneously nurse did exactly that.

“CLEAR!!” her body trembled but still nothing. 

Peter began pumping her heart manually. He kept applying pressure on the heart to make it work again but nothing was happening, he was almost giving up hope.

On the other side of the bed, James was much more shocked. He looked at Naomi’s face and Peter’s face then again Naomi’s trying to figure what was happening.

Just as Peter gave up on pumping, James jumped in and started pumping himself. Peter just stood there, doing nothing but watching a husband desperately trying to save his wife. He saw the whole institution of marriage in those few seconds. He didn’t call the time of death; he just stood there and waited.

On the other hand, it had been a few minutes since James had been pumping. He monitor gave a little beep and showed a slight peak every time James applied pressure but that was just because of the pumping. He was long gone by now.

“Let her go James, she is gone. Let me call it.” Peter finally said.

“NO!!” he almost screamed and suddenly lowered his voice almost apologetically.

“She isn’t dead. She can’t be dead. I can’t be the one to let her go, I can’t be the one to let her die.” He started crying.

“Here, let me do it” and Peter took the body from James and started pumping.

He locked eyes in James eyes as he watched Peter formally pumped each little heartbeat into his wife’s body. After pumping a few times, Peter finally let go.

James started crying. Peter looked at the watch and loudly said, “Time of death 0200 hrs” and walked out of the OR.

He sat on the nearest bench, engrossed in his own thoughts. He saw the perfect marriage. 

His own marriage was in the ruins but he somehow understood what he had been doing wrong. He saw his wife as someone he was made to spend his life with, not as someone who was his life partner. He suddenly stood up, changed and ran to the car.

He drove as fast as he could, which was not usually the case as he tried his best to reach the house as late as possible. He carefully sneaked in his house while his wife was still asleep. He changed and got under the covers and probably after five years wrapped his arm around his wife and lent a small kiss on her neck, laid his head on the pillow and went to finally a happy sleep.

Marriage (Part 1)

“And you make my life a living hell!!!”  Dr. Dawson screamed as he rushed out of his house to go to the hospital in the middle of the night. He paced up to the car, took out his keys but couldn’t unlock it. He kicked the side door of the car knowing it won’t help, but it felt good. He tried again and after taking a deep breath he finally succeeded. He almost simultaneously put the car into reverse as he turned on the radio. The radio guy said it might rain tonight. This night just keep on getting better and better, Peter thought to himself.

Dr. and Mrs. Peter Dawson had been married for just a little over five years. The marriage was love-cum-arranged. They knew each other since the last ten years and their families decided on their wedding. Neither of them was really happy about it, but both of them accepted it as their fate. Mrs. Dawson was a primary school teacher. Surrounded by other people’s kids all the time made her realize how pathetic their married life was going, after all they had talked about it. Neither of them had the time and energy to take care of a kid. But the endorphins in Mrs. Dawson used to screw with her mind once in a while. They had legally been together since the last five years, but emotionally neither of them connected. Both of them did what other couples do and to an outside they were like a normal happy couple. But maybe they were just too good actors. There was no love between them, there never was. All they had was a sense of responsibility towards the society that married couples stick together, which they did.

But the fighting had increased since the last few weeks. Peter spent almost all of his time in the hospital and Mrs. Dawson in her bedroom crying about her life. They tried to ignore each other because they knew once they crossed path, either of them might just blow up simultaneously and shout at the other once. This night was Peter’s turn; the only mistake Mrs. Dawson did was that she forgot to put dry towel in the bathroom, this lead to a fight which somehow involved everything from Peter spending all his time in the hospital or Peter’s insecurity that she was somehow cheating on him. He never figured out why that particular thought came into his mind. He knew she was loyal, maybe he didn’t want to believe he was the reason their married life was going upside down and that too very fast.

Peter reached the hospital in almost half an hour. The rain had started almost the time he left his block and by the time Peter got out his car and ran inside the building, he was dripping wet. He cursed the rain gods once more and started walking in. The residents de-briefed him. The patient was a lady of 75 years of age with heavy artery clogging. She had been in surgery four times in the last two months and somehow it didn’t solve the complication. He heart was now too tired to pump blood anymore. If there was any doctor in the state that could save her, it was Peter.

Peter put on his coat and went in to the room to inform the patient about the surgery she was going to have, a protocol needed to be followed. He went in and saw the patient lying on the bed almost unconscious strapped to machines designed to catch any discrepancy in her heart beat. They had attached a pacemaker to her just in case her heart gave up even before the surgery. Peter came in and saw an old man standing by the old lady, holding her hand and stroking her hair gently as if pacifying her into sleep. He was her husband. Peter looked over the charts to see the exact condition of the patient. Her name was Naomi Matthews. Her husband’s name was James Mathews. Peter noticed that the chance of this surgery going successful was almost none.

“Good Evening Mr. Matthews, my name is Dr. Peter Dawson and I will be performing the surgery.” He extended his hand.

“Good evening Dr. Dawson, please call me James.” He shook Peter’s hand. 

“Now I understand your wife had been in the OR four times in the last two months. That’s resilient to say the least.”

“Yes, she is a fighter” he said and smiled. He leaned down and kissed her forehead.

“Now, James it is my duty to inform you that the surgery that I am going to be perform tonight is a very complex procedure. Basically we are going to insert alcohol into the clogged artery and it would burn the extra clogging particles. Your wife, Naomi, need to be awake for the procedure so we might need you to be in the OR during the time of the surgery to be able to talk to her, keep her awake because if she sleeps it can lead to many more complications. “

“Sure, anything for her.” He said very calmly.

“And I understand you want to sign for a do not resuscitate form. Are you sure about that? A DNR form means no life support?”

“Yes, Dr. Dawson I understand. We talked about it. If it’s her times, she wants to go with dignity and not lay on bed like a breathing corpse.” James said, looking over his wife.

“Sure James, if that’s what you want. It was my duty to inform you. We should prepare for the surgery.”

James didn’t reply to Peter’s last statement. He just held his wife’s hand tightly and just kept looking at her.

“James??” Peter finally called.

“Oh sorry doctor I got lost in my thoughts.” He smiled.

“No problem James, I will go and prep the surgery.”

“You know Dr. Dawson; we have been together for the last fifty years, just her and me. We didn’t even have kids because she thought they might divide the love we had for each other. I was a soldier and every time I was called on active duty, we would say our final goodbyes knowing I might not be back, but I did. We do the same before every surgery, knowing she might not come back, but she does. But today, she isn’t even awake properly to reply to me. I can’t say my goodbye today doctor, which is how I know she isn’t going to die. She can’t go without saying goodbye to me.” He said and Peter saw, for the first time, a tear rolled down James’s wrinkly cheek. But this was neither the tear of joy or sorrow, this was the tear of him being proud of their love. Peter kept looking at James’s face lost in his own thoughts about his wife. The nurse shook him back to his senses.