Life

You see, I had to leave school early because I am sick-- really, really, sick. They ruled out strep throat, but decided to test me for Mono. Which involved bloodwork. Well, as we (my sis, mom and I) went into lab corps, there was this old couple (I'm guessing that the woman was in her nineties), and the husband wheeled an oxygen tank for his wife. They were walking right outside the front door. When we went inside, they told us that we needed our insurance cards. Mom didn't have a copy, but each of us had a copy in our purses... which were in the car.
So Sunny and I go outside, and the woman from a moment before was standing there without her husband, and she was panicked, as she fumbled with her oxygen tank. So we tried to calm her down and get her to explain what was wrong. The tube that went from the machine to her had been accidentally pulled free from the tank.
The woman couldn't breathe.
As she spoke she got dizzy-- she swayed a little, her eyelids fluttered. I stepped behind her, and held her around her ribcage and let her lean into me. Then I told Sunny to figure the machine out fast.
A thouand thoughts flashed through my mind-- Sunny and I were CPR trained and certified, but we couldn't perform rescue breathing on a 90 year old when we're sick-- she'd catch our illness, mono or otherwise. We couldn't go get someone, because we needed both of us there with her. Her husband was supposedly pulling around the car, but how god-blessed far could the man have parked away?! "Thank you, girls. You girls are a blessing." she kept repeating. Sunny worked at the machine, and we tried to make sure she remained responsive-- we engaged her to keep her talking. If she was talking she would breathe more conciously. Finally the husband drove around. We helped her to her car. It was over.
The whole thing may have lasted two minutes, but I was scared out of my mind. After it was all done, I was shaking; I seriously thought she was going to faint or pass out, or have a seizure or something.