Do Not Linger
by Lizzie Benge
Spine by realitysadream on Flickr
[Text Message Thread: Intern Group Chat]
Jason: Who else is covering the COVID wing tonight?
Sara: Me. It’s like a maze in there—half the rooms negative pressure, other half just hope and duct tape.
Me: I’m in. Can anyone bring coffee? Or holy water?
Jason: lol, holy water’s back-ordered. Like PPE.
Sara: Good luck with Room 402, the wife’s there again. Masks don’t shut her up.
[“Important Notice” Flyer Taped to Wall Outside ICU]
Stay safe, stay distanced!
Protect yourself: wear your mask, wash hands, protect your loved ones.
Do not remove N95s in ICU areas.
Do not linger in patient rooms.
If you experience symptoms, report to Employee Health immediately.
REMEMBER: WE ARE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER.
A coffee stain spreads across the words.
[Hospital EMR Notes, Copied & Pasted]
Room 402 - Patient J.G., 74 y.o. male, COVID+, intubated. Hypotensive.
Family present. Wife refuses to leave room. Refused telehealth for last rites.
[Mental Notes, Unwritten]
6:27 p.m.
Room 402 again. I hesitate outside the door, watching my own reflection in the glass. I look exhausted, eyes sagging above the mask, but the wife is watching me through the window. She’s waiting. I nod at her, like I know what to say.
6:30 p.m.
Inside, it’s a symphony of beeps. Each one makes me flinch. She doesn’t notice. She’s sitting so close to the bed I can’t imagine how she got in there, so close that her body is folded around his hand like she’s sheltering it, keeping it warm. She looks like she’s praying, but her lips aren’t moving.
6:33 p.m.
A single phrase goes through my head on a loop: Do not linger. Do not linger. Do not linger.
6:37 p.m.
The halo effect. That’s what they call it when fluorescent lights hit the right angle, the perfect glow. She sits there, her head tilted back like she’s pleading with the lights themselves. For a second, I think she’s glowing. It’s the only beautiful thing I’ve seen in months. Then she catches me looking and her eyes are full of daggers.
[Overheard in the Break Room]
“It’s endless. One more night shift and I’ll probably be intubated.”
“I cried into my mask during rounds. Seriously. Had to change it.”
“Every time I close my eyes, I see the numbers from the monitors. Just floating. Like they’re burned into my eyelids.”
“You think that’s bad? I heard a guy coded three times in one shift. Same patient.”
“402?”
“Nah, 507.”
“Oh. Yeah, 402’s a different kind of curse.”
“Bless her heart, though. That wife? She’s angry, but it’s like… I get it. I’d be pissed too if it was my husband in there.”
[Random Notes, Written on Back of Scrub Cap]
Remember: intubation = last resort, not magic fix.
Document vitals every hour.
Keep distance, even from your own thoughts.
Wash hands until they crack.
[Search History, Deleted]
when will COVID end
how to make hands stop hurting from hand sanitizer
ICU dreams when will they stop
patients dying COVID how to cope
what does it mean when you see halos
job openings non-medical fields
how to stop seeing numbers on ceiling
[Patient Progress Note, Unsubmitted]
Patient J.G., male, 74, intubated. Spouse at bedside. She holds his hand as if it’s the only thing tethering her. Last night she screamed at me, yelled until the words turned to gasps. Her rage is electric. Today she is silent, except for her eyes. They burn through me.
[Imaginary Diary Entry, Found on Unused Page of Pocket Notebook]
Day 137 of intern year. This feels less like medicine and more like… swimming in a flooded house. Holding my breath, walking through rooms that keep filling with water. Every door I open is a new wave, another current pulling me under.
The patients cling to us. They think we have answers. We think we have answers. But every night I go home and all I have are numbers echoing in my head—oxygen saturation, pulse rate, blood pressure, beeping monitors. I try to sleep and see lines, peaks and valleys, the last rhythms of strangers.
[Text Message, Drafted but Never Sent]
Mom,
I’m okay, I promise. Just tired. Everything here feels... I don’t know. Like it’s never going to end. Some days I look at these patients and I see myself, or you, or Dad. I think about what I’d do if it were you on that bed. I get angry, too. I get so angry I can’t even breathe.
Love you,
[unsent]
[Hospital PA System, Overheard]
Attention all staff, Code Blue in Room 402. Code Blue in Room 402.
[Mental Note, As the Intern Walks to the Elevator]
I should feel something.
I look down at my hands, at the little dents the gloves have left on my skin. I think about Mrs. Greene’s eyes, the sharp, angry slashes of them, how she seemed like she wanted to hit me or hold onto me—anything to anchor herself to this world. But I can’t think about that right now.
Do not linger.
The elevator doors close, and I let the last thought float up, like bubbles rising in deep water, slipping out of reach.
Lizzie Benge is a sleep medicine physician, first-year attending, and faculty member at Harvard Medical School, Division of Sleep and Circadian Disorders. Lizzie writes about the intersection of medicine and humanity, capturing the quiet, powerful moments that reveal the resilience of patients and doctors alike.