“When the Grim Reaper comes to call, words fail – they’re just too small.” – Dixie Lyle, To Die Fur
Harriet Tubman may be one of the most admired figures in all of American history. Her bravery is the stuff of legends. Besides my personal admiration for what she did, I’m also saddened that her ancestry goes back to the Akan people of Ghana. I am an Akan.
She will forever be remembered for her use of the underground railroad to free over 300 slaves after she escaped slavery herself. In about 19 trips, she never lost a single passenger.
I often think of Ms Tubman when life rears it’s ugly head.
I also find myself comparing what she did to what I do. To what doctors and nurses who take care of critically-ill patients in either the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) or the operating room (OR) do.
Please do not get me wrong. I am in no way setting the two jobs on the same footing. Not at all. I dare not. I wouldn’t survive for a minute in the conditions she thrived in.
What I aim to do is compare only an aspect of what she did to what we as critical care providers do.
Ms Tubman used her wiles, intuition, courage and the underground railroad to snatch men, women and children from the clutches of slavery.
Doctors and nurses who work in the critical care setting, either in the operating room or the ICU, use their acquired skills, intuition, advanced monitors and drugs to snatch men, women and children from the clutches of the Grim Reaper.
Whereas Ms Tubman never lost a passenger, we are not so lucky. Sure, modern medicine allows the most amazing stories of healing. A series of these successes makes one forget that, like Ms Tubman, we are really trying save people from a really powerful enemy.
Her enemy were the slave owners and the States . Ours is the Grim Reaper.
The fact that we succeed is often not so much due to our abilities but also to luck or chance or fate or providence, whatever you want to call it. Then every so often, just when you think you have reached a safe spot with your ward, the Grim Reaper shows up unexpectedly and snatches him or her back. That is when one realizes who really is the more powerful. That our knowledge, monitors, intuition and drugs are really feeble attempts to hold off the might of Mr Reaper.
So as the futility of the moment hits and chest compressions are halted, a flat line on a monitor screen is all we are then left with. In the silence that ensues, one can often hear his faint but powerful voice as he escapes with the soul of a patient who was alive only a few minutes ago. One can usually hear his chuckle as he asks, “Who’s is your daddy?”
No answer is needed, then those moments remind us all of the frailty of life and our powerlessness. One can then only sigh, get back the composure and march off to the next battle, hoping this time to get the upper hand. Then as old as life itself is this dance with the Grim Reaper. A truly macabre yet rewarding dance indeed. We get better at it each day and I’m sure Ms Tubman would be proud.