Oh, baby

We step off the elevator. I'm too tired to take the stairs this morning. As I walk toward the unit, I turn to my patient's husband and ask, "How are you today?"

"I'm okay," he says.
"Did you sleep?" I ask.
"Some," he responds.
"How is the baby doing?"
"She's stable, they say."

We walk in silence, alone in the long hallway.

"I hope my wife is better today," he says, turning to look at me.

"Me, too."

We enter the unit and part ways as I head for the report room. I watch him walk with the bent posture of someone straining under so much weight he can hardly stand up. All day, he goes back and forth between his wife in our unit and their only child in the NICU.

His wife alternates between sedation and agitation. When she is awake, she is trying always to ask about the baby, over and over. We tell her what we know, but we can't tell her what she needs to hear because it isn't true. The continuous dialysis machine clicks and whirrs.

He may lose them both at any moment. He is a big, lumbering man, but he looks so small and alone in the recliner, even when family comes around. Sometimes, he begins to snore and I move so quietly, I am almost like a whisper.