Barriers: A Rewind

(I’m revisiting a story I posted back In September 2017, way before the COVID madness happened.)

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He was always there.

Constantly standing outside the ICU room, that is closed by a sliding glass door. He looked worried. The expression on his face was if he was begging for any news or information to any hospital staff that goes in and out of that room. Except that even when we tried to talk to him, he does not comprehend any word we say.

He does not speak English. Yet I believe he had a sense of what was going on. I think he somehow knew that something very bad was going on. Except nobody can really confirm it to him in a language he can understand.

His wife was inside that ICU glass room. Lying in bed hooked to several monitors and to a life-sustaining machine. Infusing into her veins were several liquid medications in upside down bottles hanging from poles. Coming out of her body were several tubes and catheters – some in natural body orifices, and some in surgically made openings.

The room was a negative air-pressure isolation room. Meaning, that all air droplets were being suck out of that room to a special outlet to prevent from spreading. And all personnel that go into that room needs to don a gown, a mask or a respiratory hood, and gloves.

As he stands outside that glass room looking in, several barriers are separating him from his sick wife, and from the world.

First is the physical barrier of being in an isolation room. This is being done as we suspect she has a highly contagious disease that can spread not just to the other hospital patients, but also to the hospital staff. If only he can be constantly at her bedside. Of course he is free to go inside the room, as long as he wear all those protective gear.

Second is the language barrier. Being a new immigrant to this country and not understanding its language can be very isolating. Not able to communicate even the simplest of questions is already difficult, how much more understanding a very complex situation.

Perhaps he and his wife came to this country to escape hardship or persecution. Perhaps they came here to pursue a dream and to begin a new life. Then, this happened. Which leads me to the biggest barrier of all, the barrier of the unknown tomorrow. What will happen to his wife? To him? To their dreams? And their future?

For the past two days we have been talking to him only through a phone interpreter. Due to the circumstances’ limitation, most of the conversation with him was to explain a procedure or a test that is needed, and to obtain his consent. Consent for blood transfusion. Consent for the CT scan and MRI. For the spinal tap. For chest tube insertion. For percutaneous abdominal drainage catheter. For bronchoscopy. And other more. But sitting down and explaining to him every nitty-gritty details of his wife’s illness and its prognosis, we have not done yet.

Finally, the social worker was able to get an interpreter to come to the hospital. Being an obscure dialect of a certain language, it was hard to get an interpreter in person.

So I sat down with him, and with a live interpreter, explained in as much as I could, the gloomy situation. I explained to him the severity of his wife’s condition: with overwhelming still-to-be-determined infection, plus the ravaging systemic lupus affecting almost every organ including the brain, the odds were plainly against us.

As I converse with him through the interpreter, I learned that he has no relatives and the only family he had here in the US is his wife. I also learned that at night he still goes to work at a meat-packing factory so he can keep his job, and then come and stay in the hospital all day. Somehow he just tries to sneak some naps in the ICU waiting room during the day. No wonder he looked so haggard. Life can be tough at times.

Then he asked me the crucial question, “Would my wife get better?”

I gave him my honest answer, “I don’t know.” I told him that there’s a possibility that his wife may die. Even though she’s only 22 years old.

His face became more saddened. Perhaps that’s an information that he was afraid to learn. Now through the interpreter, he fully grasps the gravity of the state she’s in. Sometimes I think, that not knowing is better. Perhaps not understanding is bliss.

Two more days passed, and he was there most of the time. Outside the glass door. Looking. Pleading. Hoping. I almost wanted to avoid him, for there’s no comforting words I can say, with or without the interpreter.

But today is different. I cannot wait for the interpreter to arrive so I can talk to him. I needed to tell him the news. I think we have found an answer. I think she is slowly getting better.

I needed to tell him, that I believe she will live.

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*Post Note: We diagnosed our patient with lupus that is complicated with tuberculosis of the brain. But she got better, and after a couple of weeks in the ICU she was transferred out and eventually went home much improved.