The people bursting through the hospital doors,

 

Yelling blood pressures, heartbeats per minute, and conditions.

 

The rush of adrenaline running through my body,

 

I realize that time is ticking.

 

 

 

The heartbeat starts getting faster— tachycardiac.

 

Think fast, I start telling myself.

 

I begin yelling at the nurses, but before I can,

 

The heartbeat stops; flatline.

 

 

 

Oh no, now what? Defibrillating.

 

“Charging to 300 . . . Clear!”

 

The body jumps in a jolting motion;

 

The heart begins beating again.

 

 

 

Blood pressures are beginning to return to normal,

 

Body temperature at 97.8 degrees fahrenheit.

 

Heart rate at 74 beats per minute.

 

Success, I tell myself.

 

 

 

I take a deep breath,

 

and move on to the next trauma room.

 

 

 

The child laying in the bed,

 

her entire body covered in bruises and cuts.

 

To check for internal bleeding,

 

I take her in to get a CT scan.

 

The child is bleeding internally in her stomach,

 

Sh*t, she needs a surgery.

 

 

I start scrubbing my arms and all the way up my elbows.

Going through the doors, my hands still wet,

Waiting for the nurses to hand me a towel.

 

Pulling the gloves over the cuffs of my gown,

I approach the girl lying on the table.

“Scalpel.”

I begin cutting vertically and sagittally across the abdomen.

“Suction.”

Using the forceps, I carefully take the clots out from the lining of the stomach.

 

 

I catch my breath by sighing with relief.

 

Walking out the trauma and surgery rooms,

 

I see the families worrying about their children,

 

their husbands, wives, grandparents, aunts, and uncles.

 

 

 

 

I have more than one patient— multiple families, to attend.

 

Many of them begin sobbing as I tell them what had happened,

 

Those families are unfortunate with losses.

 

 

 

 

The adrenaline I get from seeing each patient.

The feeling I get when a heart begins beating again,

The smiles on a patient’s face when they awaken from a coma or surgery,

Are just a few of the many things that could change my life forever.

 

One job, not only can change my own life but another’s

That job, is to become a surgeon;

To save a life.