doctormono

[doctormono]

00:00:00:00:14:59

It was easier when I was a kid. Maybe because I didn’t understand what I was seeing. Everybody had numbers over their head, counting down to zero. It wasn’t until I was around nine years old that I understood it was counting down to each person’s time of death, or Life Counter as my video game addled internal monologue got used to calling them. Most people had years, decades even on their life counter. When I was twelve, I realized my mother’s life counter only had a couple years left, so I spent every day I could with her and visibly watched my efforts add a few more years to her life before cancer finally took her. But our relationship had delighted her enough to make those last few years fill her with pride and ease. I could not have asked for more. When I was young, I wondered if there was a religious connection. My Presbyterian upbringing had no words for what I saw, so I began to discard that idea out of hand. I understood the Life Counter’s connection to decisions and well-being by the time I was eighteen. We were having a graduation party and Tommy Sanders was drinking way too much. As I watched, his counter dropped from four decades, to twenty minutes in less than an hour. I tried to keep him at the party and sometimes, my arguments would cause his Life Counter to pause while he considered my words. But his drunkenness won the battle and he tried to drive home. He wrapped his car around a telephone pole less than a mile away from the party. When I got there, I held his hand as he died. I watched his Life Counter drop to its final few digits and spoke soothing words to ease him along. In the reflection of the passenger side window, I saw a year add to my own Life Counter. Then I understood. It was game balancing. This wasn’t an ability given from a divine presence, this was a dev team working the kinks out of their game. From that point on, I took Life Counters more seriously. I went to school for nursing and dedicated my life to helping others deal with their counters running out. I even specialized in oncology nursing and found a position at a local hospital ward that specialized in palliative care. Sometimes, I was able to help my patients to make good decisions and add months or even years to their counters. But more often than not, I was simply an ear or shoulder to help them in the hardest of times. People talk about the clinical side of our vocation- that we can separate ourselves from our patients and stay professional. That’s bullshit. I fell in love with each and every one of my patients, especially near the end when all pretense was gone and many just wanted someone to know who they really were. I had my favorites- a little boy named Juan that I was able to help gain years on his prognosis by delighting him with my boyfriend’s Star Wars costume group appearances, or Andrea who reminded me so much of my mother and hearing her stories added a week and a half to her Life Counter. But most importantly, was Sister Margaret. Margaret, or Maggie to her friends, was in her nineties. She’d come under doctor’s instruction with expectation of end of life care, but here was a 93-year-old nun with 34 years left on her Life Counter. I wanted to ask how that was even possible, but I knew the moment I first brought a meal to her room, that she could see Life Counters too. I didn’t speak of it at all. I avoided being alone with her as long as possible until I had to help her with adjusting her IV tube. “You’re not immortal, you know,” she said as if we were in the middle of a conversation. I’d thought she had been sleeping. “I’m sorry?” “You’re not immortal. Sure, you have a heads up onto how long you have left, but that number goes both ways, Child.” I sat on the edge of her bed and looked deep into her eyes. “Nancy,” I said with a tap on my nametag. “But I’ve been sick before, and it never seemed to affect my Life Counter.” “Is that what you call it?” She laughed a bit and placed one of her hands on mine. It felt cold, and I cupped it in both of mine to keep it warm. “I always called it the Clock.” Without realizing it, both of our Life Counters rose. We went on to discuss how it worked, and what it implied. She had found a place for her in the Church as she studied what the Clock meant. She’d been convinced that we were something akin to Grim Reapers, Ankou, or even something like Mot or Charon. I understood about half of it. In turn, I explained my video game theory and she agreed that giving us a benefit could just be “Game Balancing” but she emphasized that we could make the same bad decisions as the departing and lose years on our counters in the blink of an eye. She was right, of course. Later that week, after a twenty-hour shift, I’d just put on my coat and pulled out my keys for the thirty-minute drive home when I passed by Maggie’s door and heard her shriek from within. “NANCY!” I stopped and ran into her room. She was staring above my head. “Twenty-five minutes.” I looked in a mirror, the bags under my eyes had bags. But over my head, my Life Counter read “00:00:00:00:24:48” I stepped back and almost fell onto her bed. “You won’t be driving home tonight,” she said gesturing at the couch in her room. “You won’t make it.” I agreed. But when I woke, I found that Maggie had left in the night. It was a long time later that I truly understood. She’d only agreed to accept her doctor’s request because she would be needed. For me. Balancing. The Dev Team was on their game. With all that had come in recent months, I couldn’t stay at the oncology ward upstate much longer. I took a leave of absence long before Covid-19 hit our shores to help out at NYU Medical Center in the heart of the city. Somehow, I knew it was coming. It wasn’t a side quest; this was the main storyline mission. But a month into the outbreak in NYC, and I didn’t feel like I was helping enough. My counter hadn’t risen in weeks, and worse of all the bodies were beginning to pile up. We’d needed to order a refrigerated trailer just to house what we couldn’t fit in our overflowing morgue. It was Friday. I left the room we kept a seven-year-old boy named Tyler in. He was positive for corona virus and not responding well to treatment. His counter said he had just over two days. He was still coherent but in isolation, and could barely breathe with the ventilator. But worst of all, his parents were not allowed in the hospital. We skyped them daily, but ultimately this child was dying alone, surrounded by anonymous doctors and nurses with masks and gloves, without understanding why. Nothing I’d tried had helped in the least. It was all I could do to keep the tears at bay. I still had more patients to visit on my rounds, including a new tenant two rooms down. I changed my gloves and mask before checking on them. It was Maggie. But My elation was short lived as I realized her counter had only four days left. “Maggie?” Her eyes eased open and took a while to focus on me before she feebly said “Nancy?” “Maggie,” I began exasperated. “You should still have another twenty-five years or so. What happened?” Maggie huffed as she struggled to find words without her ventilator. “It’s worse, Nancy… Worse than polio. I had to open our doors. Help who I could. The Clock be damned.” I explained what had happened here at NYU. I talked about my patients, how I didn’t seem to be helping. I cried about Tyler. I could feel how cold Maggie’s hand was through my glove. “It’s not about their Clocks anymore, Nancy. It’s…not even about.. yours. The Final Boss. It takes a risk to beat. And some risks, we don’t beat.” I understood. When I left her room that night, I took off my gloves and mask. I sat by Tyler’s bed and I held his small hand against my cheek until he woke. “Hi there,” I began. “I’m your nurse, Nancy. And I’m going to stay here with you.” Tears followed well-worn tracks on his cheeks as he smiled weakly. “But you’ll run out of time.” “I don’t care,” I admitted through the well of tears. And I didn’t. My Life Counter would reach zero sooner than I’d expected, but in the end, it gave him more time on his.