Coming Clean
A physician keeps quiet about her past as her patient struggles with alcoholism. (Story: 1:38; Q&A: 10:12)
Caregiver Stress and No Regrets
My husband and I took care of my mom for five years, when she had Alzheimer’s. She just couldn’t handle Assisted Living/Memory Care, so Hubby and I became the “Memory Care Unit.” There were days when I was stressed, exhausted and overwhelmed. Yet, I have no regrets.
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Fear of COVID
Penny was enraged when she learned that we were no longer wearing masks at our hospital. “That’s murder,” she said. “Everyone should wear a mask at all times.”
I explained that I was following the advice of our infectious disease experts. There are downsides to masks: They make communication and patient assessment more difficult, especially in psychiatry. It’s harder to build rapport when we can’t see each other’s faces.
“You’re killing people,” she replied.
The Difference
My patients do not speak. Or rather, my patients do not speak using words. Instead, they have taught me the art of body language—of noises, expressions and postures.
I read the movement of ears, the way pupils dilate or constrict. Watch for the tremors, for the hunch of a spine, for the described bows or stretches that could indicate abdominal spasm. Search for the hint of a leg being favored, for the inaudible signs of pain. Wait for tongues darting over lips. Offer food that may be sniffed at or turned away from. I’ve learned to respond to fear with gentleness, to preempt the sharpness of tooth or claw with slow movements.
Quasi Niente
On Wednesdays, one of the residents in my clinic precepting group usually presents a didactic. However, last Wednesday, the junior resident was absent, and I decided to present a case of a “challenging patient” instead. The patient himself wasn’t really challenging, I explained to the residents, but he was in a challenging situation. I had a 20-minute telemedicine session the following day, and I wanted the residents’ advice on how I should best spend my time with the patient.
Understanding, Forgiving, and Loving
The older I get, the more ridiculous I find regrets. Why waste even one moment on a past that I cannot change? Instead, I try to focus on the present by living a life that gives me no regrets—one of theatre, books, adult education classes and family.
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June More Voices: Regrets/No Regrets
Dear readers,
Edith Piaf, the powerful, diminutive French singer, had a worldwide hit with a song entitled “Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien,” translated as “No Regrets.” It was a philosophy that my Belgian mother took to heart, resisting any and all invitations to reexamine past actions in light of actual outcomes and acquired wisdom.
It takes some vulnerability to express regrets. Living with constant regret is a recipe for misery, but expressing regrets can bring us closer to one another, as regrets are a part of life–at least for most of us.
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Happiness Loves Company
I remember the first time I saw the gates of the Missionaries of Charity home for the destitute and dying, on the outskirts of my hometown, Pune, in western India.
I must have been nine or ten. To my annoyance, my parents had woken me early that Sunday morning to go with them to visit the home and bring donations of clothes and other necessities.
“How much longer, Papa?” I kept asking as we drove.
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When Is the Right Time?
Stephanie passed away this morning.
In an email from her husband, Frank, I learned that I’d lost my dear friend of two decades.
Stephanie was only forty-two. An administrator at a local bank, she was also a devoted wife and the loving mother of three daughters.
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