October 2009

Jonathan Han

“Don’t worry,” my doctor said.

I barely heard what he was saying; lying there in the hospital bed, I was caught up in contemplating the diagnostic procedure I was scheduled to have the next morning.

“With these anesthetics,” he continued, “you won’t feel or remember a thing after it’s over.”

“Okay,” I answered weakly, signing the consent form with unaccustomed legibility. But could I really forget the emotional trauma of these past twelve hours?

I’m a physician, and blessedly accustomed to standing on the other side of the health-and-illness divide. But after four days of crampy abdominal pain, my self-diagnosed “gastroenteritis” had horribly morphed into a “rule out carcinoma” directive. Now I faced another twelve hours of waiting–reviewing the possibilities, expecting the worst–until my procedure could be performed. Could I stop silently reviewing my CAT scan findings (that suspicious abdominal mass) and numb my feelings of anguish and anticipatory grief?

“Do you want a sleeping pill for tonight?” asked my doctor.

“I don’t know,” I stammered.

“It may help you sleep,” he pressed.

“Okay,” I said, grasping at the chance to escape this nightmare. Inwardly, though, I craved