"intubate" poems - Hello Poetry

I’m thinking about the doctor's hands shaking as she struggles to intubate a cat. I’m thinking about the technician's hands squeezing the cat’s rib cage, pulsing life with a delicate force; she is much more gentle than practitioners are with humans— hard and quick down with the palms; the ribs snapping, the sternum sore. Some time ago an 80-year-old woman on my unit was opened up bedside for a cardiac procedure during a code. After a week in ICU, she came back to us on the unit, was up and walking and talking, and was discharged home within another week. Meanwhile, the 60-year-old man was dead in the morgue after a 45-minute code failed to resuscitate him. The flip of the coin. The thin line. The blessing or the curse. The absolute darkness of a body bag. The cold chill of absolute zero. The fresco painted on the catacomb walls could either depict the light of the sun or the multicolored lights that the brain shoots off minutes before death. The eleventh hour, isn’t that what it’s called? We don’t want to talk about body care, death care. We have to, but it won’t register. After a loss, after a trauma, we are on autopilot. I think of my mother, six feet beneath frozen soil in a pink padded casket and think: I don’t want that. I think of the prearranged plots my grandparents picked out next to her in an above ground crypt and think: I don’t want that. Bacteria still causes decay after the embalming process. Putrefied flesh. Bones visible. Muscles eaten. Tissues disintegrated. We don’t talk about it. We try to think the opposite. The positive vs the negative. (But that’s not always possible or healthy.) I’m thinking about hands inserting IVs, hands taking blood pressures, hands documenting the code notes on a clipboard in the back of the room. I couldn’t do these things. My hands tend to break what they touch. The glass bowl in the pet store. The clay project in art class. The succulents, the basil, the orchid. I’m good at things I don’t have to think about: good at the autopilot, good at the autonomic, good at trauma.

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Nov 19, 2020

Nov 19, 2020 at 2:47 AM UTC

taylor-st-onge

It’s Not Fight, It’s Not Flight, It’s Freeze

I’m thinking about the doctor's hands shaking as she struggles to intubate a cat. I’m thinking about the technician's hands squeezing the cat’s rib cage, pulsing life with a delicate force; she is much more gentle than practitioners are with humans— hard and quick down with the palms; the ribs snapping, the sternum sore. Some time ago an 80-year-old woman on my unit was opened up bedside for a cardiac procedure during a code. After a week in ICU, she came back to us on the unit, was up and walking and talking, and was discharged home within another week. Meanwhile, the 60-year-old man was dead in the morgue after a 45-minute code failed to resuscitate him. The flip of the coin. The thin line. The blessing or the curse. The absolute darkness of a body bag. The cold chill of absolute zero. The fresco painted on the catacomb walls could either depict the light of the sun or the multicolored lights that the brain shoots off minutes before death. The eleventh hour, isn’t that what it’s called? We don’t want to talk about body care, death care. We have to, but it won’t register. After a loss, after a trauma, we are on autopilot. I think of my mother, six feet beneath frozen soil in a pink padded casket and think: I don’t want that. I think of the prearranged plots my grandparents picked out next to her in an above ground crypt and think: I don’t want that. Bacteria still causes decay after the embalming process. Putrefied flesh. Bones visible. Muscles eaten. Tissues disintegrated. We don’t talk about it. We try to think the opposite. The positive vs the negative. (But that’s not always possible or healthy.) I’m thinking about hands inserting IVs, hands taking blood pressures, hands documenting the code notes on a clipboard in the back of the room. I couldn’t do these things. My hands tend to break what they touch. The glass bowl in the pet store. The clay project in art class. The succulents, the basil, the orchid. I’m good at things I don’t have to think about: good at the autopilot, good at the autonomic, good at trauma.

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Quiet, dawn, Covid. Biggest accomplishment yesterday: buying toilet paper. Thanking the young cashier for doing her job. Feeling a little sick, wearing my mask and gloves, Spring oblivious to the virus, an idiot like Millay said. At least we’re not beheading each other—yet. Symptoms mild so far. Today rest, no long walk, no knee bends. I think I’ve watched every possible movie and tv show and nothing’s left that doesn’t bore me. I could learn the calculus, chemistry or physics but will I and what for? Most poetry is chopped up prose. That’s harsh but true. But that’s because most days are prose or yesterday’s news. Win or lose sumthins gonna getcha. Drug cartel assassin, the blues. If not now, when? Some other Wednesday. Why wait? I wish I had some wisdom to translate. It’s living and helping others to live that counts, I guess. Cast a cold eye and guess, walk the extra mile, report from the besieged city, be wise or a **** I hope to get the antibodies the easy way, mild symptoms, no brush with death, don’t intubate. An existential bessemer process, strange quark, chances are I won’t be able to organize this day into an expressible state. A daily exchange with nature’s enough to alleviate my fear. When I thanked the cashier her smile was like the sun coming out from behind clouds or the end of the pandemic, as if I had not wasted my life.

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Sep 13, 2021

Sep 13, 2021 at 8:38 AM UTC

robert-ronnow

Covid Cashier

Quiet, dawn, Covid. Biggest accomplishment yesterday: buying toilet paper. Thanking the young cashier for doing her job. Feeling a little sick, wearing my mask and gloves, Spring oblivious to the virus, an idiot like Millay said. At least we’re not beheading each other—yet. Symptoms mild so far. Today rest, no long walk, no knee bends. I think I’ve watched every possible movie and tv show and nothing’s left that doesn’t bore me. I could learn the calculus, chemistry or physics but will I and what for? Most poetry is chopped up prose. That’s harsh but true. But that’s because most days are prose or yesterday’s news. Win or lose sumthins gonna getcha. Drug cartel assassin, the blues. If not now, when? Some other Wednesday. Why wait? I wish I had some wisdom to translate. It’s living and helping others to live that counts, I guess. Cast a cold eye and guess, walk the extra mile, report from the besieged city, be wise or a **** I hope to get the antibodies the easy way, mild symptoms, no brush with death, don’t intubate. An existential bessemer process, strange quark, chances are I won’t be able to organize this day into an expressible state. A daily exchange with nature’s enough to alleviate my fear. When I thanked the cashier her smile was like the sun coming out from behind clouds or the end of the pandemic, as if I had not wasted my life.

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By: Cedric McClester I take a flu shot each and every year And I had a pneumonia vaccine so I didn’t fear Guess that’s why my *** wasn’t in gear When the symptoms initially began to appear I relied on RobiTussin instead And wound up being a day from dead When the ambulance was called I was code red We’re off to Lenox Hill Hospital the driver said Caught a bad case of pneumonia Weeks before the Coronavirus hit Which was something I thought that I couldn’t get And it really had me feeling like a piece of **** But I was lucky I have to admit As I lie there struggling to catch my breath The hospital had plenty of ventilators left No need to condole or to be bereft My family gathered in intensive care To the person they were acutely aware That I didn’t have a lot of time to spare Which gave them all a great big scare But I told the woman in my life That I would make it, see she was my wife So she allowed the doctors to intubate me That’s why today I’m pneumonia free For a while it was a crap shoot I must confess When my temperature went up I became a hot mess But the nurses and doctors were among the best So they induced a coma so I wouldn’t digress My chances of survival were a mere 50/50 And that kind of diagnosis just isn’t nifty It was only when they decided to shift me From the ICU that I began to heal swiftly Cedric McClester, Copyright © 2020. All rights reserved.

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Apr 10, 2020

Apr 10, 2020 at 9:18 PM UTC

cedric-mcclester

A BAD CASE OF PNEUMONIA

By: Cedric McClester I take a flu shot each and every year And I had a pneumonia vaccine so I didn’t fear Guess that’s why my *** wasn’t in gear When the symptoms initially began to appear I relied on RobiTussin instead And wound up being a day from dead When the ambulance was called I was code red We’re off to Lenox Hill Hospital the driver said Caught a bad case of pneumonia Weeks before the Coronavirus hit Which was something I thought that I couldn’t get And it really had me feeling like a piece of **** But I was lucky I have to admit As I lie there struggling to catch my breath The hospital had plenty of ventilators left No need to condole or to be bereft My family gathered in intensive care To the person they were acutely aware That I didn’t have a lot of time to spare Which gave them all a great big scare But I told the woman in my life That I would make it, see she was my wife So she allowed the doctors to intubate me That’s why today I’m pneumonia free For a while it was a crap shoot I must confess When my temperature went up I became a hot mess But the nurses and doctors were among the best So they induced a coma so I wouldn’t digress My chances of survival were a mere 50/50 And that kind of diagnosis just isn’t nifty It was only when they decided to shift me From the ICU that I began to heal swiftly Cedric McClester, Copyright © 2020. All rights reserved.

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making a living (writing poetry) in the time of Pandemic listening to priest Leonard, while locked in my library-cell, isolating my body to spare all the rest my very worst, not forgetting that the heart that needs guarding,^ comes along to make sure I stay within in-sane lane this poems allegorical title arrives like a hit pop song, one you firm believing, of course, you know all the words, no way, you don’t, like make a living writing poetry, nah, you just make living, writing poetry every lover found and lost, recorded, every turning point turned into a lyric stylized, every incident memorized, timed ‘n rhymed, so total recall even in a disorderly meter still unvarnished survives, and that’s how my living became such well paid poetry playing my own life backwards, praying for all life forward, don’t intubate me if it comes to that, cause I’ll be needing vocals, them chords vital to record my fellow Jerusalem-bound pilgrims who appoint a poet-in-residence as recording secretary of the Covid ward, to make their living, not their dying, poetry, in the time of Pandemic April 10, Twenty-Twenty 10:53am Good Friday Passover, 2nd day, 5780

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Apr 10, 2020

Apr 10, 2020 at 12:08 PM UTC

nat-lipstadt

making a living (writing poetry) in the time of Pandemic

making a living (writing poetry) in the time of Pandemic listening to priest Leonard, while locked in my library-cell, isolating my body to spare all the rest my very worst, not forgetting that the heart that needs guarding,^ comes along to make sure I stay within in-sane lane this poems allegorical title arrives like a hit pop song, one you firm believing, of course, you know all the words, no way, you don’t, like make a living writing poetry, nah, you just make living, writing poetry every lover found and lost, recorded, every turning point turned into a lyric stylized, every incident memorized, timed ‘n rhymed, so total recall even in a disorderly meter still unvarnished survives, and that’s how my living became such well paid poetry playing my own life backwards, praying for all life forward, don’t intubate me if it comes to that, cause I’ll be needing vocals, them chords vital to record my fellow Jerusalem-bound pilgrims who appoint a poet-in-residence as recording secretary of the Covid ward, to make their living, not their dying, poetry, in the time of Pandemic April 10, Twenty-Twenty 10:53am Good Friday Passover, 2nd day, 5780

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No real connections and no restraints… I watch you breathing and feeling faint. I hold your hand and ask you to fight. I will tell you, your attitude can save your life. I know you’re alone, please know I am here. I see you starving for oxygen, I feel your fear. Please listen to the doctor trying to prescribe, their knowledge and experience can save your life. Please try my darling, you’re just too young. Starving for oxygen can leave you high strung. Don’t you understand the BiPAP can save your life? Or should we start the process and notify your wife? Sweetheart, I get that this is hard! You can’t breathe deeply, your lungs are scarred. I know that I will always ask for too much. We need to get you out of bed and sit you up. But, let me tell you the other route. If you give up, unfortunately, we have our doubts. We might end up having to intubate… And leave those strong wrists in soft restraints. This is something we as nurses know, Unfortunately, once intubated your prognosis is low. Most Covid patients never wean off of the vent, So say goodbye to your family and friends. I’ll hold your hand no matter what you decide, I’ll hold the phone to your ear listening to your families last goodbyes… We will all cry and all of our hearts will break, You’ll just just be another statistic the media will define as “fake.” … please know I’ll always remember you by heart, I’ll remember your story from end to start, I’ll never forget what you’ve been through, because that’s what we as nurses do.

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Aug 23, 2021

Aug 23, 2021 at 4:25 PM UTC

SweetCalamity

Alone 😷

No real connections and no restraints… I watch you breathing and feeling faint. I hold your hand and ask you to fight. I will tell you, your attitude can save your life. I know you’re alone, please know I am here. I see you starving for oxygen, I feel your fear. Please listen to the doctor trying to prescribe, their knowledge and experience can save your life. Please try my darling, you’re just too young. Starving for oxygen can leave you high strung. Don’t you understand the BiPAP can save your life? Or should we start the process and notify your wife? Sweetheart, I get that this is hard! You can’t breathe deeply, your lungs are scarred. I know that I will always ask for too much. We need to get you out of bed and sit you up. But, let me tell you the other route. If you give up, unfortunately, we have our doubts. We might end up having to intubate… And leave those strong wrists in soft restraints. This is something we as nurses know, Unfortunately, once intubated your prognosis is low. Most Covid patients never wean off of the vent, So say goodbye to your family and friends. I’ll hold your hand no matter what you decide, I’ll hold the phone to your ear listening to your families last goodbyes… We will all cry and all of our hearts will break, You’ll just just be another statistic the media will define as “fake.” … please know I’ll always remember you by heart, I’ll remember your story from end to start, I’ll never forget what you’ve been through, because that’s what we as nurses do.

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