December 2014
I was in the ICU with pneumonia and severe sepsis. The doc pumped me full of fluids to get my blood pressure up. I was there for 3 days. As an asthmatic I thought I was having a horrible asthma attack. I later learned that I couldn’t breathe because the amount of fluids being pumped into me was filling my lungs. The respiratory therapist had just been into my cubicle with a treatment. I didn’t feel like it had done any good. I saw him passing in the hall and begged him, half screaming and pleading, for another treatment. He didn’t say anything. He quickly looked both ways down the hall and wheeled the equipment inside. He let me breathe in the nebulizer for about a minute. I thanked him profusely. He didn’t say anything. He just whisked back out and went onto his next task.
I’ll never forget that act of kindness. To this day I wish I could thank him again. The thing of it is this: that treatment did nothing for me. I was beyond the nebulizer at that point. But it was a psychological need after years of asthma. He probably knew that. He did not stay to pat my hand or say anything at all. He just granted my one wish. I didn’t know how close to death I was at the time.
He was in blue scrubs, thin, long afro, and very young. Thank you, whoever you are. You could have just kept walking. There was no glory in it. It was a little thing. But it meant everything to me.