B eep…Beep…Beep… I listen to the rhythmic sound of relief and success. A smile of pure reprieve breaks out under my face-mask as I feel my heart continue to shoot adrenaline through my veins like bullets. Amidst the noise in my head and the cheers in the operating room, I hear myself whisper, “thank you.” I turn to the nurses on my team. “You can wheel Mr. Garrett to recovery,” I release a breath I didn’t even realize I was holding. I lift a still shaking hand and wipe a damp strand of dark hair off my forehead with the back of my gloved wrist. With tears gathering in the back of my eyes, I whisper, “He’s going to be all right.” In surgery, there’s a thin line between success and failure that it is barely visible. As a practicing surgeon for thirteen years, I find that I dance on that line often. Too often. Nearly twenty minutes ago, I thought I crossed it when Tom Garrett went into cardiac arrest almost immediately after a complicated brain surgery. I happened t
Living in a world of silence would be unbearable, So we can’t stop hearing. Life comes alive through our eyes, So we can’t stop seeing. But, A world with excruciating numbness must be preferable Because it seems to be too easy to turn off our feelings. Watching homicides, bombings, kidnappings, Casually flipping through the channels on our TVs. Barely pausing to think, We deepen the crease in our brows saying, "That's terrible. I'm so sorry." The last two words spoken as our eyes wander back to our activities. We shed our sensitivities like dead, brittle leaves from autumn trees. When was the last time you gave something a second thought, Or laughed so hard, your sides ached, Or cried yourself dry. When has something in the world angered you so deeply You did something about it. What will it take to move us slightly, To outrage us, to confound us, To wind us so tightly We will lift ourselves out of the comatose slumbers