A squirrel called life.

Oh I am overjoyed.
Absolutely over the moon and elated at one small little thing that happened to me today in the ICU.
I dont know why but I have this certain fate with ICUs, I experience truely shaking experiences in there that teach me about life and everything else.
I was taking the blood pressure and other vital signs of the patients in the ICU (They're connected to monitors, dont get me wrong...however, the monitors seem to have an opinion of their own, giving astronomically inaccurate results for some reason). One of the patients I was attaching the cuff to, was called Siham. A plump, motherly looking woman, on a mechanical ventillator. After reading her clinical progress notes I found that she has HCV and liver cirrhosis and came presenting with disturbed conscious level. Hepatic encephalopathy?
The measures for treatment of encephalopathy were carried out (Rectal enema, lactulose,  rifaximin etc), made no response. They carried out a brain CT which revealed thalamic infarction. So this lovely comatosed lady was candidate for stroke rehabilitation. She aspirated and developed an unpleasant pneumonia (as if there's a pleasant kind of pneumonia anyways! lol) and frankly, her condition looked pretty bad.
She looked pretty much dead. But it's my job to take her vital signs nevertheless.
While lifting her arm to attach the cuff, I found that she, herself lifted her arm to assist me. I looked at her face. Is she aware? Or was that a reflex movement. I continued with inflating the cuff with a finger on the radial pulse (I like to do palpatory method to get the rough systolic before auscultating), then deflated slowely, listening carefully to the brachial artery for korotkoff sounds. A blood pressure of 160/90. Ok. Took note and started detaching the cuff. She, again lifted her arm as if to assist me in removing the cuff.
I had to test this out. Is this lady conscious? She was known to have GCS of around 5 or something. I looked at her face again...she had her eyes closed, nasogastric tube hanging out of her nose, an oropharyngeal tube attached to a ventillator and a series of tubes and other weird looking thinsg I didnt recognise coming out of her face. How could a conscious person tolerate all this. Surely this is a reflex movement.
I whispered "Madame Siham...can you hear me?....if you can hear me, open your eyes"
Pause.
Who are you kidding, open her eyes eh bas?
To my utterly horrified pleasant surprise, she opened her eyes to look at me.
HUH?
"Madam Siham...could you blink once for yes and twice for no? I'll ask you a question...are you feeling cold right now?"
She blinked twice.
WHOAAA DUDE! She's alive! And she can hear me and she can understand AND she can respond.
DESPITE all that mess she's in.
WOW.
I was overjoyed. I was so happy to see this I nearly bent down to kiss her.
Life.
Oh how precious life is. She has that life spark still inside her. She wasnt gone yet. She was actually alive.
I have never ever felt the preciousness of life up until this moment.
I felt that having 'life' or the spirit of being alive is like a shy squirrel hiding within the crevices of this lady, and I had called it out..and it responded to me.
I have just seen the rare glimmer of life within a seemingly dead body.
What an honour and a precious thing.
I was pleased for her.
I was also sad for her, she was awake and she experienced all this? She can feel the tubes in her and the uncomfortable position and the noise and the pain and every horrible thing and still not be able to do say or do anything about it?
Painful.
Oh how resilient and beautiful you are.
I was struck with a strange ray of love and respect for this woman.

It was a strange time for me. I was so intently focused on this goosebump moment that I was completely oblivious to my surroundings. It was like time had stopped and the whole universe was silent. It was just me and this woman and the little squirrel within her, which I called life.
Weird triad, but nevertheless...it makes my heart melt just remembering her eyes as they opened.
Alhamdulilah
Alhamdulilah

Perhaps this woman's little squirrel will run off and she'll be lifeless and dead soon enough. This is all of our fates...but that's not the point. In the moment, in that brief sacred moment I felt the true preciousness of having life.
Alhamdulilah