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本篇文章截止时间为：2017年1月1日前译回

A 23 year old woman walks into an emergency department. She's 22 weeks pregnant, and she can't breathe. Her doctor mumbles something reassuring as her mind pours over differentials and her hand passes an ET tube. The patient teeters on this moment, and the room takes a deep breath.

The 23 year old has gone from a person to a body that doctors try to keep from becoming a corpse. A heart, two lungs, two kidneys, and one uterus containing another heart, two lungs, two kidneys, and another uterus. On the drive home, I will wonder what constitutes a life. Is a patient still alive if a machine bypasses her heart and lungs? Is a patient still a person when she will die if doctors turn off her “epi drip”? But these questions come later.

Established procedures tell us what to do at this juncture. In between compressions, a steady hand pulls a scalpel and a tiny, grey patient is born.

Resuscitation on the 23 year old continues. Doctors pause to ponder futility, but continue to work under the mantra, “She’s so young.” In three days this patient will wake up. In five days she will be sitting by her bed. The next day she will turn 24.

As the whirlwind continues in the trauma bay, there is a forgotten patient; the tiny grey patient. Cut from her mother too soon, she emerges limp. The new grandmother is called to the bedside, and she asks to be alone.

 In a quiet corner room, on a different planet, grandmother rocks her granddaughter. Her life will be a matter of minutes. Wrapped in a white blanket with a white hat, the baby is cradled. Grandma holds the child to her chest, kisses her cheek. And there against her grandmother’s beating heart, the baby takes her last breath.