Hopeless

"She has Gaucher's disease, she's not clotting, her liver is extremely swollen and failing, she has an abscess that is draining staph aureus into her blood, severe bacteremia and septicemia, acute endocarditis, a ventricular septal defect, and a severe aortic insufficiency caused by vegetative puncture of her aortic valve."

Every frustrated word was bitten off through the slant of his thin lipped mouth and shot at me faster than I was able to process.
His brow was wrinkled in desperation that had a faint echo of the disheartened beginning of defeat.

"But...what....what will we....what can....are we going....to do?"

Inexperience is often the most idealistic of creatures, promising mountains and hoping, expecting, to ride the clouds. Doctors fix things, don't they? Doesn't 18+ years of school and practice make you untouchable?

 We'd followed this woman's case for 3 days. He'd diagnosed her almost single-handedly; pieced together the story from confusing symptoms and test results.

An abrupt halt. Shoes squeaked on the glaring tile floor. Sun cut through the window, obtrusive, invading the private conversation, uncaring of the privacy of matters. He looked me square in the face, level gaze, eyes sad, voice firm, shoulders set.

"We can do nothing. Alysa, nothing. This woman, she is going to die. She is going to die within the day and there is nothing we can do about it. She needs an aortic valve replacement immediately; the surgeons will never take her case. Her heart won't make it through the first round of anesthesia. And if it does, her body may most likely reject the implant anyway. She cannot clot and will bleed excessively. And if she makes it through those things, she will still probably die from bacteremia. She is not strong enough to fight this. She will die."

I paused, stuttered, glanced around the hall in my momentary loss for words. Loss for thought. Loss of balance. Looking for a salvation answer, really any answer that didn't include the only one left. I ran to catch up with his stiff stride that had headed for the stair exit.

"Where are we going?"

"To make a call to the surgeon."
We were side by side now, up the stairwell, seizing steps two by two, me grasping at the rail as if it were a lifeline.

"To...tell them she's going to die?"

Thrusting the door open for me, he burst through it behind me and hurried down the hall, regaining that determined look. Intentional walk. Arms swinging.

"To ask them to operate."

Can I tell you something?
He asked.
They operated.
And the woman who wasn't strong enough?
She's still fighting.