Am I wrong for refusing to treat a patient who came into my ER?
I’m 40, an ER nurse for fourteen years, and I walked off a code because of who was on the stretcher.
The paramedics rolled him in at 2am, unresponsive, and I stopped dead in the hallway.
It was my ex-husband, Gary, 44. The one who left me and our daughter Paisley for another woman when Paisley was three months old. Fourteen years and not one birthday card.
I hadn’t seen his face since the custody hearing. Now it was gray and slack on a gurney, and part of me – God, part of me just stood there.
My charge nurse, Denise, grabbed my arm and said, “Monica, you’re up, let’s go.”
I told her I couldn’t. She asked why, and I said the words out loud for the first time in fourteen years: “That’s Paisley’s father.”
She looked at me like I’d grown a second head and said, “You’re a professional. Get in there.”
So I did. I ran the code. I did compressions on the chest of the man who ghosted his own kid for a decade and a half, and every push I gave him I thought about Paisley crying at her dance recitals scanning the crowd for a face that never showed.
The doctor called it – he was stabilizing, barely, and needed to go up to the ICU. I stepped into the hallway to breathe and my phone buzzed.
It was Paisley. She’s seventeen now, and she still doesn’t know her father exists forty feet from where she does her homework on Tuesday nights when I bring her to visit me at work.
Her text said: “Mom can you talk, something happened at school and I really need you right now.”
I stood there holding my phone in one hand and Gary’s chart in the other, and I had to decide which one of them needed me first.
The Phone in My Hand
I stared at the screen. The words blurred. My thumb hovered over the call button, and I could hear the cardiac monitor beeping from the room behind me, the nurse saying “Sinus tach, BP 90 over palp,” and I thought, fuck you, Gary.
If you’re still reeling from this intense story, you might find some other gripping reads in my collection, like when I Refused to Do CPR on My Own Father in the ER or the chilling tale where She Grabbed My Sleeve and Wouldn’t Let Go. Then She Said ‘Basement.’. You can also see a different side of loyalty when Am I wrong for backing my husband when he pulled his badge on a stranger?
