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Show 81 I am looking around the room at the faces that are watching his hands moving quickly and I can see that no one is smiling. "It's an easy thing to do," he is continuing, referring to the "nicking" of my lung. I cannot see the resident or the intern but I am pleased that he has assumed himself among the guilty plural and is not chastising them in my presence. I know it was a mistake that no one intended. The air from the oxygen mask is chasing away the black spots from my vision and the calm voice from the nurse holding the mask tight onto my face slows my heart in its cadences to something resembling calm and I do not need so much air. My struggle slows in the grasp of her tranquility. "Better?" the attending is asking me and I nod my answer. He is adjusting something somewhere and I can hear sound of mshing air somewhere distant. "If there is air in your chest outside your lungs, this will get rid of it," he is saying. He is finishing placing the central line now, he is telling me, and the extra staff are now gathering up then empty boxes and throwing away their trash as they exit the room. I can now see the resident and the intern standing uncertainly next to the door. |