Chapter 44
44
Kieran
Sybil’s voice was a blur in the background, and I felt my body move as if on autopilot, my training taking over.
Hands centered on the chest.
Elbows locked and shoulders directly over hands.
Two inches down.
One hundred to one hundred and twenty compressions per minute.
She was crying behind me, and I felt her footsteps and her panic, but with each compression, I could block it out. I knew what to do. It was automatic. I could fix this.
Open the airway to a past-neutral position and tilt the head back.
Pinch the nose, take a normal breath, and make a seal over the patient’s mouth.
Each breath lasts one second.
Repeat.
Sybil paced behind me, the rhythm of her steps, my compressions, her steps, my compressions. Breath. Breath.
I did it over and over again, focused on his chest and counting and doing everything I could to take care of him until the paramedics rushed through the door behind me, nudging me aside. I stepped away, gulping in deep breaths and feeling Sybil’s palm on my back, her body at my side. I watched them work, and somehow I slid into shoes, but I didn’t remember them appearing. The paramedics strapped him to the gurney, and I searched for anything to think of besides the fact that Granddad wasn’t breathing on his own, because despite all my education, I couldn’t wrap my head around him not making it. He would. He had to.
I needed to focus on something else—anything else. I sucked in ragged breaths and tried to still my shaking hands as we hurried out of the apartment, and I saw the magnet on the fridge, the one I’d sent him from Texas with the mascot giving a thumbs-up.
I couldn’t go back. I’d have to stay to take care of the shop and Granddad. No matter the committee’s decision. I would have to stay out for another year, and I’d have time to make it all work—to do things right with Sybil; to really take care of Granddad, because he was going to make it. He had to. And I needed time to figure out how to quiet the doubts in my head about medical school. I should have been panicked about that, but what I felt, what emotion stood there on the sidelines with worry and fear that Granddad wouldn’t make it, was something like relief.