A woman is rushed to the E.R. because she is in pre-mature labor and experiencing loss of blood. You see the E.R filled with a NICU team and OB team as well as surgeons etc... The woman is also diabetic,hypertensive, and quite literally hysterical which isn't helping the situation. To make matters worse, she is hispanic and although some of the trauma team is bilingual, she is so disoriented they cannot understand her. You see this beautiful disaster unfold as anesthesia runs in and they prepare to do an emergency c-section. After an intense few moments a screaming bloody baby is extracted from the mother and the NICU teams gets to work helping the premie to breathe. You then see this lovely little clip a few days later with the mother in recovery holding her newborn with a myriad of tubes attached to the infant. The viewer (me) feels a sense of relief. You think, "wow this baby has overcome so much!"
The episode also included gun shots wounds and run of the mill trauma. At the end of each episode they give updates on most of the patients. As I'm reading the text the following sentence scrolls across the screen:
"Baby Armando was discovered to have a rare heart condition and passed away 5 days after his birth."
Immediately the next show cuts in "John and Kate Plus 8" with this cheery little elevator music intro, and I'm left with my jaw on the floor.
What's my point? I guess I or "we" have gotten so used to having these musical motifs to clue us in that something bad is going to occur, similar to a sitcom. We hear these 9 second audio clips of violins suddenly changing to a minor or diminished key pre a tragedy. It occurred to me that if I'm in an ICU fighting to save someone's life and they take a turn for the worse, and pass away ,there will not be a soundtrack of tragic music to lull the pain of death or loss... there will simply be the cold stark reality that the individual no longer exists. I guess I should get used to it really. It reminded me that these shows are real people, these physicians and nurses take on these burdens daily.
Now to brighten the mood a bit, I present to you, "cats in hats " (against their will):
I got my hurrr did
