She just showed up with it one day

the patient I cannot name here.

She had been one of those few patients

that I’d allowed myself to get too close to

guess that we had come to know each other

over the several years it took

to get two, t-w-o, double lung transplants

such a vivacious twenty-something

progeny of excellently smart parents

that somehow had given her the cystic fibrosis DNA

the stupid rare gene that kills some folk faster than others.

We’d likely done eight or nine bronchoscopies

The usual protocols, monitoring for what we were monitoring for.

I always tailored the music in the suite to the patient

and her broncs had become a contest of a sort.

She’d try to ask for something i didn’t have over there

in the collection only on CD’s in the player,

this was pre-Pandora, or Apple music, or anything like that.

She’d giggle when I couldn’t produce it

settle for something like what she’d asked for.

Wheeling her up to the suite from Out Patient Surgery

she’d taken a CD case out from under the hospital gown

“take this you old Respiratory Therapist Hippie Man”

She’d kidded again, she was like that.

“You gotta play this when I come”

it had some greats on it, James Brown, Nine Inch Nails

just to name a few -her fav’s.

The affinity we enjoyed had progressed from a sterile smelling procedure lab

trust abounding to take appropriate care

She would look up at me

as I handed the prepared sleepy-time meds

calling them the “I don’t care, and I don’t remember meds”

and say those words with me in unison

as if to a four-four time signature along with the tune that was on.

She’d enjoyed eight more years of prolonged life

from her two transplants.

her deadly Cystic Fibrosis was aggressive,

and the second set of lungs

were to play in the same minor key as the first.
at her age in her late twenties.

I was in the room when she told her parents

no more surgeries. Couldn’t do it again

a combo of couldn’t and wouldn’t.

I just happened to be there having come by to check on her

heard she had be re-admitted and was very sick

lungs full of mucousy shit that had her at death’s door again

that is the way of pulmonary Cystic Fibrosis

(It is relentless even with the best care)

when her parents came in and she chose to surprise all of us

with her announcement.

Such moments are beyond tender

beyond intimacy, and well into anguish

I shook her Dad’s hand, clear that it was time to leave the hospital room

her Mom followed me out into the hall

“Did you know she had made this decision?”

shaking my head “NO”,

i tried to be professional while wiping my left eye’s tear

Mom said “we have been dreading the need for this conversation,”

and, “we knew it was coming.”

I did my best to console her

out there in the hall, and she just asked me

to leave her time to be alone with her thoughts,
and then Dad appeared from the room

leaving the door to it open

her Mom leaned against the hall wall, crying

looking at Dad, I touched her shoulder, and walked away.

c Ray Whitaker, 09/22