Lub Dub

It was by no means my first CPR. I’ve been the intubator, the breather, the drug-giver, or the ECG reader what seems like dozens of times before. But today, today was the first time that I was the one pounding on the chest – compressing a dying, malfunctioning heart, hoping to provide just enough circulation to give the dog a chance at life, hoping that that heart would start again. And when it did, when I felt the heart start to pound again beneath my hands, it was exciting. More exciting even than the flutter of activity on the ECG. But it was a failing heart and ten minutes later it was one of the sadder euthanasias I’ve seen, with an elderly man in tears holding a cell phone up to the dog’s ear so that his wife could say her goodbyes.