tomato soup

I know you need to
Breathe through
Come back
Come to
-The New Pornographers, Adventures in Solitude

Oh well, it's been pretty crazy around here since you heard from me last.

Two wednesdays ago, on the 13th, my very dear friend Hayley was found unconscious on the floor of her friend's house in North Van, barely breathing. She was intubated, brought to Lion's Gate Hospital and admitted to the ICU there where she spent the better part of the week in a coma. I won't get into the details in this space, but despite a pretty bleak prognosis in ICU, Hayley woke up on thursday and has been slowly recuperating. She's out of the ICU now and line-free (no iv's, ng tubes, catheters), walking around. She's still pretty confused but recognizes everyone, and is talking, reading and piecing everything together.

The whole experience has been quite difficult of course (having a good friend almost die, trying to study/write my surgery exams), but it has also been a learning process for me. It doesn't matter how much you try to understand things from the "other side of the bed", it's pretty much impossible until you are actually there. It's been tricky trying to decide what role to take, especially while sleep-deprived and emotionally incapacitated. How to be helpful at interpreting the jargon and clarifying things for the family while not interfering with her care, or speculating on prognosis or why she ended up there in the first place. I still have my get-out-of-jail-free "I'm just a medical student" card, but for better or worse, that won't last forever. At any rate, I am sure I will be in a similar situation again and it will be just as challenging. I just hope the next time isn't too soon.