Beyond Connection
Very early on a Sunday morning, my friend Marla called asking for help. She was in excruciating pain—bone metastases, as it later became clear, from her breast cancer. She’d been instructed to head to the emergency room and needed a ride.
A Tale of One City
A physician-mother has two children, both of whom sought medical care at a storied medical institution in the environs of Boston, Massachusetts, in December of 2022, as the city was in the grip of the “tripledemic” of COVID-19, respiratory syncytial virus, and influenza. Following is a summary of each case.
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Stories
For the fifteen years that I have been at my current job, I have held onto my patients’ stories. Tucked into special pockets in my heart, they would be brought out whenever their “owner” came in for an appointment, where the story would take on a new form, then be stored away again. There were stories of shame and heartbreak, stories of joy and triumph. People confessed their deepest fears, shared events never revealed, and confided fledgling hopes and dreams. These stories are signs of patient-physician trust and of sacred human-to-human connections.
Daring to Dream
For the past three years, I worked as a rural primary-care doctor. Two months ago, I resigned to pursue further training in hospice and palliative care. My patients were the inspiration that illuminated every step of my way towards this new path.
Marly came to me for a workup of her persistently elevated liver enzymes. Together, we navigated her new diagnosis—liver cancer—and a series of failed treatments. Eventually, Marly’s thoughts turned to facing her mortality.
My First Epidemic
I used to stick needles into veins. I learned how on manikins and co-workers’ extended arms of trust. I never took a class. I wasn’t a nurse. I was a white middle-class health educator in central valley California teaching farmworkers and homeless men and women about a new epidemic called AIDS. Educators were needed who were comfortable talking about sex and condoms, hope and death, and drawing possibly infected blood.
Losing My Footing
I have a neuroimmune illness that for years was considered not to be “real” but that changed my life. On top of that, I’m unable to tolerate many medications, which have too often been prescribed for me with no consideration of what I’ve told doctors about their debilitating side effects. But about eighteen years ago, an angel entered my life in the form of a physician who did his initial training in India and then finished up in New York. I don’t know if it was his Eastern orientation that made him so patient-oriented, listening seriously when I needed his help, but he was perfect.
Northern Lights
“Let me die,” you say.
You’ve listed the reasons, presented the arguments: You’re a burden, a mere speck in a world of billions, one that will not be missed. A life that never asked to be born. Why prolong this pain?
“Please, let me die,” you say again, this time with a sob that allows no more words.
I hear you, I do.
Aphasia
Your words topped mid-sentence again. Will I speak to fill the awkward silence as you search for the words, or hope you complete the thought? Your quiet blank look hangs like milk fog, white, colorless as music at rest when I can still hear it playing. I search your face as finally you finish speaking, apologizing to me again.
The diagnosis was FND. I had never heard of Functional Neurologic Disorder. When you first described symptoms to medical staff, they first thought you had MS, especially after many falls.