My Surreal Experience In Medicine

Sunday morning coffee and postsecret used to be my favourite ritual. Since I started hearing secrets all week in my office, my heart needs Sundays to recover from the pain I’ve helped everyone else heal from. I need to remind myself that I get some time too. I miss being surprised by what we do to each other.  

Whenever I check a patient’s pupils for reactivity, I remember a gentleman from my training. 

I was paged by a nurse because she had noted that one of his pupils was fixed and dilated. He was palliative, but a stroke would be a big change for him. I was on call for the weekend, so I was covering all the patients, even the ones I didn’t know. 

I went to examine the patient. His wife was at his bedside and asked what I was looking for. “Your husband’s nurse noticed a change in his neurological responses so I wanted to see how he is doing.”

“Oh. Are you looking at his left eye?”

“Yes...”

“Because that’s the false one.”

She was so kind and appreciated that her husband’s nurse was looking out for him. She explained the circumstances of his losing his eye. 

I learned to ask if things are normal for patients even though they may seem abnormal to me. I appreciated her generosity in assuming we were caring for her loved one rather than that we were incompetent for not having his entire medical history memorized. I loved that the nurse, who was at the beginning of her career, wasn’t afraid to ask for help when she noticed something abnormal. 

It was a lovely example of how a caring patient interaction should go. 

2 were sitting with each other at the nurse’s station. One repeats the same phrases over and over again, “What’s your name?” or screams out for no apparent reason, and the other usually speaks in word salad. 

The first screamed, as he does. The second looked at him and very loudly said MEOW!

The first stopped mid-scream, mouth hanging open. The second returned to her pudding. 

And I laughed until I snorted coffee out my nose. 

I do this thing. 

It’s embarrassing af. 

When a patient dies that I have been caring for, I check their obituary. I want to see if my team gets recognition; if our hospital or hospice are given donations. 

It’s a bit arrogant, but I need to know that what help I was able to give was appreciated. When my patient dies, I worry about how their family is doing, how the grief process is affecting them. I hope that they felt that I did everything for them that I could. It’s a way for me to check in on them one last time. 

Happy Birthday Sweetie. 

  This has been a long year. There hasn’t been a day that I haven’t thought of you. I’ll see something pink or purple, a bunny, a baby. I’ll be talking to a patient who is going through their own grief or is pregnant. You are always close to the top of my mind. 

  Because you’ve been so important to me, I’ve changed. I didn’t expect this. You see, the work I do has made my heart cold and closed. I’ve stopped believing in good in the world because I keep seeing the worst of people. I truly stopped believing in love. To me, it was a lot of hype for something that just doesn’t exist. 

  But B, I’ve loved you since I knew you existed. You melted my heart by making your mother and father glow. I knew that you were going to do great things in your life. I just didn’t know that you were going to do so much so quickly or that your life was going to be so short. My heart has felt broken since I found out that you and I were never going to meet, and it breaks again day after day. I wasn’t able to cry for years because my heart had hidden in a cave to protect itself, but since I saw the photo of your beautiful face I am crying rivers. The pain has made me so very angry, but has also helped my heart to open up to other people. The love that you’ve showed me actually exists is being shared. You’ve made me a better person and a better doctor. 

  I am still so angry, and I know that this is because I have been completely helpless in making it possible for you to be here to celebrate this birthday, I’m helpless in easing your parents’ pain.  I feel like medicine has failed me. I feel like I have failed you and your mother. One of the biggest reasons I decided to become a doctor was so that I could keep my family safe and well. I feel so ashamed that I couldn’t protect you. That shame has kept me hiding, because that’s what shame does. 

  I love you B.