DOCTOR DOGTOR, DO

I can’t explain to the nonmedics in my life quite how medicine traumatises you in lots of little ways.

I remember, whilst we were comparing stories and discussing our mental health, an ITU friend told me something like ‘normal people are expected to be traumatised by this stuff. We’d expect an accountant or teacher to need therapy after seeing or doing  what we do. But even though we deal with it every day, people assume you are OO and it’s normal to you’.

And I always bring it up, but it’s true.

I try to include the non-medics in my life, and I need their support. I share stories; this patient died, that relative was mean, that delirious man threatened to strangle me. I an open with the people I love, but I still share a safe, anonymused, packaged version of the horror.  

But also, I want to protect them. I hope my mum will never see as much blood as I have. That my dad will never see a crash call where there’s faeculent vomit and faeces everywhere. That my boyfriend will never have to hear the sound of a bereaved parent or know what that’s like. That   everyone I love won’t see the many ‘worst day in my life that I deal with.

Every other day we can be party to somebody’s ‘worst day in my life’ but we’re expected to wipe the slate completely clean between each patient.

Lots of our traumas are completely invisible to the rest of the world. I’m working in paeds at the moment which is of course a bundle of joy and babies and adorableness but I frequently have to lean on my friends and family and remind them that the horrors that I have seen in this job are not compensated for by the fact that I get to cuddle babies.

I am so tired. I am so scared.

My nurse friends, my fellow EMTs, my girlfriend. Me. We have all dealt with this since March.

We have seen what this virus, this disease can do.

I have been told stories. First hand accounts. The ventilators. The cannulas. The faces with skin compromised from wearing PPE too long.

The bedside prayers and breakdowns in hallways. Trailers in driveways and FaceTime bedtime stories.

The mobile morgues outside the hospitals, waiting for the slaughter of the day to enter its walls.

Tagged, bagged, moving on.

Except its not.

And they won't.

...

I have heard the cries of the uninformed and the ignorant. I have seen their lies spread far and wide, through every medium known to us as humans.

"Its just a flu."

"We need to live."

"Fuck the government."

"Don't be scared of COVID."

"I want to feel normal again."

Except we're not. And we won't be.

But to them, we always are. And always have been.

Schrödinger's pandemic.

I have seen first-hand the stupidity of the human race and it makes me simultaneously want to vomit, cry, and light this place on fire.

I have heard and seen people struggle to breathe, struggle to speak, loved ones terrified and scared for their own safety as well as the person they care about, eyes wild with concern and anxiety.

Hospitals full of people, doors closed, a silent chaos that echoes like church bells.

The signs...pink, green, purple, plastered on the doors.

'STOP - Airborne precautions".

Doctors and nurses running ragged. Their eyes so tired but so focused at the same time. Wearing the same mask and the same gown since they walked in the doors.

I have listened as people, time and time again, have told me they were positive or around someone who was. Nothing happened. They waited. Nothing still happened.

And they were fine.

And they were fine.

And they were fine.

...

And then they weren't.

...

I'm done being nice about this.

We all are.

Applause means nothing if our words fall on deaf ears.

The embers turn to flames, to blazes, to an inferno.

And the audience is still watching the circus play on.

The smoke is all part of the act.

The burning flesh is just part of the show.

Isn't it?

Isn't it?

...

Fuck your feelings. Stay home. Wear a mask.