ETHER DIARIES

controlled breaths | uncontrolled thoughts

The Last Breaths

Published by

Mark Andrew Cruz

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I had just stepped out of work when my mom’s caregiver called. Her voice told me everything before the words even landed. I rushed home. I walked into the room and saw my mother taking her last breaths.

And here’s the cruel part: I’m an anesthesiologist. I spend my life controlling breaths and bringing people back from the edge. But the moment I saw her…I knew, this was one breath I couldn’t save.

I sat beside her. I held her hand. I felt her pulse slipping under my fingers. Her chest rose, fell, rose… then didn’t.

I looked at my watch. I looked at my sister. And I said the words I never imagined saying for my own mother: “Time of death, 5:59 p.m.”

That was the moment I learned the sharpest pain a doctor can feel: calling the time of death for the person who gave you life.

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Hello,

I’m Macoy Cruz

I’m an obstetric anesthesiologist by training, and honestly, a satirist because it’s the only way to stay sane. Most days I’m tucked behind the drapes, dealing with misbehaving vitals, badly timed alarms, and patients who may or may not be fully committed to consciousness.

I was clinically diagnosed with depression in 2018, and it has been relapsing ever since. I look fine most of the time. I function. I teach. I work. Then the heaviness shows up again, stays for a while, and eventually lets go. It comes and goes in cycles, and I have learned to move with it even when it feels like it is pulling me under.

This blog has become part of how I cope. Writing helps me steady myself when the quiet depression returns. It gives me a place to breathe and make sense of the days when I feel like I am slipping beneath the surface.

So this space is my cool down zone. Part storytime, part rant, part emotional first aid kit. Expect thoughts on medicine, life, and the strange challenge of staying awake in a system that seems built to knock everyone out, figuratively and literally.

Let’s connect

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