photo: jparadisi 2012

With the care of an archeologist sifting for fossils, I hold his right arm for a second time, turning it to and fro, sliding my fingers up and down searching for a vein suitable to accommodate an IV catheter.  I’ve already looked once, and now return after a fruitless search of his left arm. Decades of chronic illness, medications, and simply old age have done their work, leaving my patient with a spindly network of fragile veins shifting loosely under his skin.

“Everyone should be born with a spigot,” I think silently to myself. “Why doesn’t this patient have a port?” I know the answer without consulting his physician: he is very old, and his illness will likely overcome him. The IV infusion I will eventually administer will not save his life, only limp him along a bit longer.

Outside, cold grey clouds shower a mix of horizontal rain and snow beyond the window of the infusion clinic. An unseasonal storm threatens what promised to be an early spring.

With a slight shiver, my patient asks if I believe in a climate change so powerful it could wipe out life on Earth. Before answering, I take in the wrinkled, reptilian-like skin of his forearm, which I continue to study. Without looking up, I respond to his question, “You mean, like the Ice Age that killed the dinosaurs?” He nods.

Magically, I feel a small, but plump vein. The IV goes in slick as oil on the first stick. I can’t believe our luck. “Yeah, I believe in climate change, but this storm will not be our extinction.”