"If it helps you and the team with your moral distress, I'm happy to touch base with you again in the future. Is there anything else you'd like to discuss?" Massaging my temples, I felt the underlying muscles tense as I clenched my jaw to prevent some choice words from coming out. No, I think you've wasted more than enough of my time today. Thank you for showing me how incredibly unhelpful an ethics consultation can be. It's been an education.
"I can't imagine how hard this has been for you, to always be afraid of getting sick the moment you step foot outside of your house. I see where that would get really lonely at times..." W's dull brown eyes shot up to mine as he mulled over the word I had given him. Would he take this gift or spit it out? No one wants to admit they're alone.
Admit, discharge, admit, discharge - just moving the meat. In this assembly line, patients get in the way of the ruthless efficiency at which I'm expected to perform. No, not the body that supplies the blood for all the labs that get drawn every morning, ready for me to review so I can plan out the day's course of action - I need that. The actual patient - the one who paddled over white rapids and waterfalls, introduced thousands of students to their love of geology and was a loyal fixture in his friend's life through thick and thin - the one who's trapped in a failing body, I have no time for.
You weren't even alive long enough for me to see your face, little one. But I remember every detail. The overhead page for a pediatric rapid response team to the main lobby. Running into the pediatric social worker as I stepped out of the stairwell, casually adopting her stride as we were pointed outside to … Continue reading Why Aren’t You More Resilient?
As the event played out, the unease I’d attempted to stuff down on my arrival began to swell. In truth, it started the moment A invited J and I to attend.
"There are so many people who should be in front of me on that list. Are you sure??"
"Now you're making it weird."
"OH, I can make things weird."
"I know you can."
"...
Okay. Well, thank you. I'll be there."
You're not supposed to be here, M.
"I know you joke about going back to retail if you quit medicine, but I can't really tell if you're serious or not and I can't gauge your reaction over the phone.
So what are you going to do, M?"
Letting the silence linger on while I pondered my answer, I was struck by the bizarre series of events that led to this conversation.
"Do you know what it's like to watch your dad try to reassure her for the thousandth time in an hour that he's there, just for her to call out for him again and again? After 70 years of marriage, he can't give her comfort because she doesn't even recognize him! This is killing him! And her! And to see her caged up in that bed is just sickening. No one prepared us for this when they diagnosed her with dementia. NO ONE." Robert patted his daughter's shoulder tentatively, almost as if to ration out his comfort in order for it to last them another day. His weary eyes locked with mine as he quietly begged, "Please do something."
When I first started this journey, I thought medicine would be everything. And for a long time, it was. Over the last 16 years I geared my entire life around it - the classes I took, volunteering opportunities, people I networked with, places I've lived. I'd squeeze in "life" during allowed breaks – sleep, exercise, celebrations, time with my husband, friends and family – all the while patting myself on the back for finding such a great "balance". But as the scales tipped more and more toward medicine the longer I headed down this path, the realization hit me: I'm no longer working to earn a living, I'm living to work. I watch so many of us continuing down the road we were set on, unsure if we can take another step but pushing forward because that's the only way we know. What if we stop?
As he pulled each supplement and natural remedy out of his reusable cloth bag to show me, outlining the benefits of each item, I wondered how long he had spent standing at his pantry last night.
Carefully selecting and researching how these things could help his wife.
Trying to do his part to help in her healing.
Trying to take back control of this shitty situation.
"Just talked to H for a bit. You should call him on your way home." Calling in the reinforcements now, are we? I didn't know whether to feel loved or annoyed. Or betrayed.