This is just for now

My thighs ached like wet rags being rung out. The chills took hold.  My sense of smell dissolved. And the shortness of breath... the shortness of breath was unmistakable.

Count the respiratory rate. I instruct medical students, new interns. That's the vital sign you want to pay the most attention to.

I counted mine, last week, when I was sick. Like a systolic murmur it crescendoed to a peak on days 4 and 5, before normalizing again shortly thereafter. It was strange to be tachypnic -to be breathing fast- when I was walking to the bathroom, pouring myself some juice, simply lying still in bed. It was hard to ignore.

But with rest (and with time) it slowed. And with Tylenol (and 45 minutes of time) the chills and the aches and the sensation that my head was heavy and light all at once would cease. And during those moments of feeling better, I found myself looking -quite literally- to the past, as well as -a little more abstractly- to the future.

This, all of this, is just for now.

How to be so sure? While sick, I did a lot of scrolling through the photos on my phone, through thousands of squares of color and light. At those depicting medical school and residency, I stopped short.

In scrubs and long white coats. On night shifts and short calls. In clinic and the ICU. Each photo served as a launching pad, jogging memories of the moments seconds minutes hours that led up to the pose, as well as those that followed. I know we all have these images in our minds, and saved to our camera rolls. Of those days we worked relentlessly hard but yet found time to smile, to put our arms around each other, to be -without trying- care free.

There's a photo of me as an intern on night float, with a stack of patient lists in one hand and a birthday card in the other, because the clock struck midnight on my 28th birthday while I was on call.  There's a photo of an East River sunrise through smudged window glass and plastic blinds, signifying day break on another overnight ICU shift.

There are photos of the hospital decorated for Christmas. My friends and I gathering in the hospital garden. Of white boards with lesson plans I didn't want to forget. There are close ups of unusual CT and X-ray findings. Screenshots of Duke's criteria. Stethoscope selfies.

All these moments came, and went. As well as so many more that though not captured with a click nor easily recalled in photo-like detail, have still managed to invisibly contribute to who we are today.

Our emotions are defining this moment. Our actions and roles keep us present, bound to this phase in our careers and our lives. But it's been helpful for me to know this is not how it always was, nor how it always will be. 

This... this is most definitely just for now. And soon? Soon we will be close again, care free, with our arms around each other. Perhaps the future doesn't feel so abstract after all.

Pink sliver is the sun rising on a long call ICU shift