Coma

The ICU was back to its pre-arrest hush. The harsh illumination had been dampened to the level Susan recalled from her first visit. The instant the heavy door closed behind her, Susan tasted the same anxiety she had noted before, the same feeling of incompetence. Again she wanted to leave before something happened and she was asked the simplest of questions to which she would undoubtedly have to answer a demoralizing “I don’t know.” But she did not bolt. Now she at least had something to do which gave her a modicum of confidence. She wanted the chart of Nancy Greenly.

Looking to the left, Susan noticed that no one was standing by Nancy Greenly’s bed. The potassium level had apparently been rectified and the heart was beating normally once again. The crisis over, Nancy Greenly was forgotten and allowed to return to her own infinity. Willing machines resumed the vigil over her vegetablelike functions.

Drawn by an irresistible curiosity, Susan walked over to Nancy Greenly’s side. She had to struggle to keep her emotions in check and to keep the identification transference to a minimum. Looking down at Nancy Greenly, it was difficult for Susan to comprehend that she was looking at a brainless shell rather than a sleeping human being. She wanted to reach out and gently shake Nancy’s shoulder so that she would awaken so that they could talk.

Instead, Susan reached out and picked up Nancy’s wrist. Susan noted the delicate pallor of the hand as it drooped, lifelessly. Nancy was totally paralyzed, completely limp. Susan began to think about paralysis from destruction of the brain. The reflex circuits from the periphery would still be intact, at least to some degree.

Susan grasped Nancy’s hand as if she were shaking it and slowly flexed and extended the wrist. There was no resistance. Then Susan flexed the wrist forcefully to its limit, the fingers almost touching the forearm.

Unmistakenly Susan felt resistance, only for an instant but nonetheless definite. Susan tried it with the other wrist; it was the same. So Nancy Greenly was not totally flaccid. Susan felt a certain sense of academic pleasure; the irrational joy of the positive finding.

Susan found a percussion hammer for tendon reflexes. It was made of hard red rubber with a stainless steel handle. She had had one used on herself and had tried one on fellow students in physical diagnosis classes, but never used one on a patient. Clumsily Susan tried to elicit a reflex by tapping Nancy Greenly’s right wrist. Nothing. But Susan was not exactly sure where to tap. Instead she pulled up the sheet on the right side and tapped under the knee. Nothing. She flexed the knee with her left hand and tapped again. Still nothing. From neuroanatomy class Susan remembered that the reflex she was searching for came from a sudden stretch of the tendon. So she stretched Nancy Greenly’s knee more, then tapped. The thigh muscle contracted almost imperceptibly. Susan tried it again, eliciting a reflex that was no more than a slight tightening of the flaccid muscle. Susan tried it on the left leg, with the same result.

Nancy Greenly had weak but definite reflexes, and they were symmetrical.

Susan tried to think of other parts of the neurological examination. She remembered level-of-consciousness testing. In Nancy Greenly’s case the only test would be reaction to pain stimulus. Yet when she pinched Nancy Greenly’s Achilles tendon, there was no response no matter how hard she squeezed. Without any specific reason other than wondering if the pain sensation would be more potent the closer to the brain, Susan pinched Nancy Greenly’s thigh and then recoiled in horror. Susan thought that Nancy Greenly was getting up because her body stiffened, arms straightening from her sides and rotating inward in a painful contraction.

There was a side-to-side chewing motion with her jaw almost as if she were awakening. But it passed and Nancy Greenly reverted to her limpness equally suddenly. Eyes widening, Susan had moved back, pressing herself against the wall. She had no idea what she had done or how she had managed to do it. But she knew she was toying in the area well beyond her present abilities and knowledge. Nancy Greenly had had a seizure of some kind, and Susan was immensely thankful that it had passed so quickly.

Guiltily, Susan glanced around the room to see if anyone was watching.

She was relieved to note that no one was. She was also relieved that the cardiac monitor above Nancy Greenly continued its steady and normal pace. There were no premature contractions.

Susan had the uncomfortable feeling that she was doing something wrong, that she was trespassing, and that any moment she would be deservedly reprimanded, perhaps by Nancy Greenly’s arresting once again. Susan quickly decided that she would withhold further patient examination until after some serious reading.