The feeling...
When the alarms start to scream...
When the monitor shows a flat trace...
When you yell for the emergency trolley and launch into CPR...
When you pound on a chest, and pump air into resisting lungs...
Sweat dripping down your forehead...
Ignoring the stares of the other patients and bystanders who have clustered around...
Trying to ignore... typical Sri Lankan morbid curiosity...
When your arms ache and you think, damn, another one...
Keeping time, injecting cycle after cycle of life-giving drugs...
And then you feel it under your hand, a vague bump...
And then you lay your palm across the left side of the chest...
bump, bump, bump...
blip, blip, blip... on the monitor
And you look up... tired smile fluttering across your face...
We've got the heart!
________________________________
Doesn't happen often...
But when it does... no words...
