the lobectomy papers: part 4

Ghost in the Machine

In spite of the high technology and professional staff, things do not always run smoothly in Stepdown.

Let's look at the computer monitoring system for patients. Each patient's computer can sound an alarm to warn nursing staff of any abnormal readings.

This is an excellent tool to provide a timely heads-up if a patient happens to be having a cardiac event or if they've, um, died, causing the signals to stop altogether.

An excellent tool, providing it functions as it should. But, we all know computers are prone to little glitches, ghosts in the machine so to speak. The one connected to the patient on my immediate left is not an exception.

The patient's heart rate, pulse or whatever reading jumps from 117 to 124, then dives back to 117, setting off the alarm because of the rapid change.

Nurses rush over, determine that the patient (who somehow sleeps through the whole performance) is not having a cardiac event, and reset the machine to shut off the incessant, high-pitched beep-beep-beeping alarm.

Within minutes, the alarm sounds again. Same drill. This goes on all day, all night, the next day and night and the day and night after that. Various nurses coming and going on their particular shift try to fix the problem. They all fail.

The obvious solution is to turn the damned thing off altogether, but that would defeat its purpose and certainly cause some embarrassment if the patient died and nobody noticed his heart stopped beating because the alarm didn't sound.

With the malfunctioning computer just inches from the head of my bed, I'm all for turning it off. By the time I reach 48 hours without more than a few minutes' sleep at a time, I fantasize about strangling the patient in the bed beside me.

I know it's not his fault. I know his computer monitor is to blame. Yet I so badly crave uninterrupted sleep that I cannot think of a good reason to spare this person's life, especially because he sleeps like a baby through the whole thing. Lucky for him, I couldn't get out of bed to save my life.

Nurses work a 12-hour shift for three days, then get four days off, so today there's a new face in Stepdown, Dan, a male nurse who responds, like all the others have, when the alarm sounds next to me for the millionth time.

"Good luck," I grumble, with no attempt to conceal my sarcasm.

"It's fixed," he replies after playing around for a bit in the menu level of the system.

"Yeah, right," I say.

I wait for the alarm to sound. It should happen in a few minutes. All is silent. Can it be? Could this guy have figured out so effortlessly what no one else could manage? I think, Nurse Dan is da man! I think, maybe there is a God. I begin to relax. I feel myself drifting, falling into the arms of Morpheus.

BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP ...

Jesus H. tap-dancing Christ, here we go again. I'm so thoroughly exhausted and angry that I am near tears. 

... BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP ...

I'm going to ask to be moved. No, demand that I be moved, away from this instrument of torture. I'll ask to see a supervisor. I'll threaten to go to the media. I'll call my Member of Parliament, my Member of the Legislative Assembly, I'll write to the Hospital Authority, I'll e-mail the freakin' Premier of the Province, I'll throw my food on the floor.

... BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP ...

And here comes Dan, the smartass who thought he fixed the problem. Oh yeah, he's gonna get a piece of my mind.

"Here we are," he says cheerfully, picking up a little clippy-thingy he sees beside me, on my bed. It's an infrared device to monitor my oxygen saturation, it has a cord leading into my computer, and it's supposed to be clipped to my finger.

Dan replaces it on my finger, resets the computer and all is silent.

"Um, I guess it musta fell off," I say in a small voice. A very small voice. Inwardly, I cringe.

If you don't yet know what trance music is, or even if you do, listen to Ghost in the Machine by Xerox & Illumination, Moshe Keinan and Amir Dvir from Israel. It's the real deal.