CODE BLUE ROOM 706, CODE BLUE ROOM 706

The message over the intercom of the hospital is loud. Nurses and doctors start sprinting from left and right towards the hallway. Monica looks up to Cármen, “Wait, isn’t that Gabbie’s room?”, she yells in panic. Cármen, Angéla and Monica look each other in the eyes, full of disbelief and stress. They immediately get up from their chairs in the waiting room and rush down the hallway. They stop in front of room 706. “Shit, it’s Gabbie”, Cármen yells in disbelief. Just when she’s about to run into the room, a male nurse stops her. “Hospital personnel only”, he briefly tells her. He turns around and closes the door to the hospital room. Cármen turns around and walks up to the reception desk on the other side of Gabbie’s room. “Can you please tell me what’s going on? My friend is in there, why did they close the door, what is a code blue?”, she asks the nurse behind the desk with a shaky voice. The nurse looks up from all the paperwork in front of her. “Let the staff do their work, ma’am. They will update you as soon as there is news, I cannot give you any information at this moment. Please take a seat in the waiting area, a doctor will be with you as soon as the situation is under control”, she tells her and immediately after telling her this, she’s back to her paperwork and has no more intentions of explaining the situation to Cármen. Cármen looks at Angéla and Monica with tears in her eyes. Angéla grabs her hand. “Come, let’s sit down. Let’s wait for the doctors, I’m sure Gabbie will be fine, she’s a fighter”, she assures Cármen with a confident smile on her face. The women walk back to the waiting room, where they sit in silence for minutes.

Minutes pass by, it feels like they’ve been waiting in the hospital for days already. The sun is rising already outside, they’ve been here all night. Monica looks at her watch and looks up to Angéla. “Oh shit, we need to get going. Your mom is passing by before work, to drop off the blankets we need for the picnic with my family next weekend”, she tells her. Angéla looks confused. “I’ll call my mom to drop them off tonight after work instead, it’s more important to be here now, to be with Cármen in case Gabbie wakes up”, she replies to Monica. Cármen looks at them both. “No, please, go. We’ve been here all night already. Get some rest, I will wait for the doctors and will keep you posted”, she tells the ladies. Angéla and Monica get up from their chairs and smile at Cármen while opening their arms. Cármen gets up and they hug each other tightly. “Take care, we will call you when we’re home”, Angéla tells Cármen. She winks at her before grabbing Monica’s hand. They walk through the hallway towards the elevator hand in hand. The elevator opens and they get in. Cármen sits back down, in hope to get an update from one of the doctors any time now.

“Miss Aguilar?”, Cármen suddenly hears someone call her name. She opens her eyes and checks her watch. It’s been another three hours, she must’ve fallen asleep. “Hello?”, she replies with a sleepy voice, trying to focus to get a clearer view of who is in front of her. It’s one of the doctors. “How’s Gabbie doing?”, she adds. “I tried talking to you before, but you were deep asleep. We have given your friend some stronger meds, she’s asleep now but we keep monitoring her for the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours at least. If you decide to go home or away from the hospital, feel free to. She’ll be asleep for the next couple of hours anyway. We will give you a call as soon as we have updates regarding your friend, just make sure to leave your name and cell number with the nurse at the reception desk”, the doctor explains to her. Cármen has a hard time processing this all. “Okay… Yes, I might do that. But… Will she be alright? I mean, what is code blue?”, she asks the doctor. “It’s too early to tell for now. She had a peak in brain activity and a high heart rate, which caused the machines she’s hooked up for now to give the alarm of a possible cardiac arrest, we gave your friend extra medication to prevent it from getting worse”, the doctor replies to Cármen. The beeper from the doctor beeps. “I’m sorry, miss Aguilar, I need to leave. Make sure to leave your contact information at the nurse before you leave, if you decide to leave. Have a good day”, the doctor tells her in a hurry while heading out in the hallway.

It takes a minute or two for Cármen to realize what the doctor told her. She needs to take some time to process the news. Gabbie will be alright, but there’s still a chance she won’t make it. She quickly brushes the negative thoughts from her mind and gets up from her chair and walks up to the reception desk. She waits for a nurse to appear. “I’m here to leave my contact details in case there’s an update about my friend Gabbie in room 706”, she says in a shaky voice. The nurse grabs a notepad from her desk. “Please write your full name and cell number here. I’ll give it to Doctor Vandekamp, he’s responsible for the patient in room 706. He will call you as soon as there’s an update. But he told me it might be late tonight or even tomorrow before we can give you further information regarding the patient”. Cármen takes the pen which is on the desk and writes down her name and phone number. “Thank you”, she says with a polite smile and slowly turns around to walk towards the elevators. She pushes the button and the elevator immediately opens. She presses the button to go to the parking garage. She gets off of the elevator and walks up to her car, unlocks it and gets into her car. When she starts the engine, a classic 90s pop song blasts through the stereo. She gets some good mood from good music. She hits the gas and drives out of the parking garage and heads back home.