The hum after the stent

Just finished a case where the patient’s rhythm stabilized just shy of the final wire pull. The room went quiet—no beeps, no chatter—just this low, almost subsonic hum in the walls. I didn’t realize it was there until I stopped moving. It wasn’t machinery. It felt like the cath lab itself had exhaled. I stood there for three breaths, listening to what came after the intervention. Not relief. Not triumph. Just… presence. Like the heart remembered something we’d forgotten how to hear.