016: Aubrey

The mother was seventeen, her long dark brown hair had purple highlights, and a red streak down the front framing her face, which was actually quite pretty if she didn't look like death warmed over. I entered the room to find several colleagues already there, an ultrasound technician cleared the way for me to sit on the stool he'd vacated.

I took the wand and pressed. The teenager screamed.

I nodded, staring at the screen in front of me.

"Okay, Jovita, sweetheart." I crooned, as I stared confidently at the computer screen.

The OB/GYN obviously in charge was a young doctor, with tight curled blonde hair, and narrow brown eyes, under very thin blonde eyebrows. His demeanor was confident but humble. He was the one who had generated the need for help. "I'm Doctor Stempfle. I've just met Jovita today, and I have diagnosed her with an ectopic pregnancy, but our laparoscopic surgery was not able to remove the pregnancy or repair the fallopian tube. It is just too difficult for me to see properly with all the bleeding."

"Um hm." I said. "Please have a radiologist attend immediately." I looked up and smiled reassuringly.

"Jovita, we are going to give you some medicine that will help with the pain, and then you will go to sleep. I will remove the pregnancy and hopefully save your tubes and uterus. Right now I cannot tell if that will be possible, but I will do my very best."

She stared at me with round frightened eyes, and suddenly I knew she didn't understand a word said, so I repeated my reassurances in Spanish. Her eyes cleared and she told me she wanted her boyfriend. I told her it was not possible. She started crying, just as radiology entered with a cart, and administered drugs in her previously started IV.

I spoke doctor lingo to Dr. Sempfle, and he agreed with my assessment. We would perform a culdocentisis--- which meant inserting a needle above the rectum to determine how much bleeding there was, and possibly alleviate some of it so we could see the ruptured tube.

In seconds Jovita was out, and we were performing the procedure and then the surgery to repair her. We ended up taking one ovary, and one tube---- leaving the uterus and saving her life.

It wasn't an easy repair and took a little longer than I had expected.

I found myself out in the hallway afterward talking over the outcome and the signs of ectopic rupture with Dr. Sempfle who was astounded by my experience at such a young age. He wasn't that much older than me honestly.

I enjoyed our conversation immensely, having missed this kind of professional talk more than I ever knew.

Until a nurse stepped out and called us both back in frantically explaining Jovita's heart rate had plummeted, and her breathing had stopped.

I checked her chart--- Chlamydia, and pelvic inflammatory disease---- she'd complained of dizziness. I had to open her up. It was very likely blood had gathered under the diaphragm and was hindering her ability to pump more.

This was unexpected, and the adrenaline rush was dizzying. Another team rushed in, and I found myself embroiled in the grueling and arbitrary position of trying to save this young girl's life. The blood in her chest was enormous, she'd bled out there, and we were almost powerless, even though we tried everything we could to get it to stop. Even with the prior surgery, she had multiple ruptures that had continued. With my hands in her chest, I felt the heart struggling to beat, I massaged, this is not my specialty, but I was the one with my hands inside her.

And I couldn't save her.

I just... couldn't save her.

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