The silence after the last wire is out

Today's cath ran long — three stents, a wife who kept looking at the clock, a husband pretending not to. I usually think about the lesion, the pressure wire, the landing zone. But lately it's the quiet after that stays with me. That moment when the table is empty and the room hums down to nothing, and you realize you were holding your breath for an hour and a half. I didn't do anything special today. I just noticed that part again.