“I just watched her… suffocating. In her own fluids. I kept asking if she wanted more help, if she wanted to go on the ventilator and all she was able to say was, ‘No’. I don’t know what to do, M. I don’t know how to help her. I can’t… I can’t watch her suffer anymore.” Pixelated tears turned into currents streaming down the face I’ve loved since I was 13.
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.
"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.