Danielle Ofri

Another twitch runs through Mrs. Rodriguez's body, and the family's staring at me, waiting for an answer.

But how can I say anything?

What if I got it wrong?

And EKG, that's it.

If I get a flat line on EKG, nobody could argue with that.

So I run out and get the EKG machine and wheel it back in.

These old, decrepit EKG machines that Bellevue had, you know, all the leads are tangled up.

And these old machines have these red rubber suction cups to put on the chest.

And when you squeeze them, electrode jelly from EKGs gone by slithers out in crusted blue clumps.

And Mrs. Rodriguez, the skinny little woman, doesn't have much bulk on her chest for the suction cups to stay onto.

So I'd squeeze one on, another one would pop off.

And so I'd apply more jelly and put it on, another one would pop off.

Back and forth, and the family is like watching a tennis match.

Back and forth as I'm chasing down the obstreperous suction cups.

Finally, finally, I get the EKG set up.

All the chest leads, all the limb leads, and I press the start button.

And we all stare at this skinny strip of graph paper that's staking out of the EKG machine, and I'm praying for something definitive.

It emerges with completely unreadable squiggles.

Between the rattling air vents and three IV pumps and next bed over, I can't get a stable baseline.

And I readjust the leads, and two more suction cups pop off.