W:
The door swung open unexpectedly and W walked in. I froze, the bulb still clutched in my hand as the column of mercury gradually fell. "I told you not to touch that," my mother scolded.
She was embarrassed that the doctor had caught me playing with the blood pressure monitor. Sphygmomanometer - I learned the scientific name for the instrument years later when practicing for a spelling bee. He laughed off my curiosity and reassured my mother it was OK. I trusted him as a child; my impression of him as a genuine and kind person formed as a youth became intertwined with how I viewed the archetype of clinicians in future. "Look at this" - he gestured enticingly at what he held in his hand - a styrofoam cup filled with smoke. "I'll let you pour it out after we're done." I was susceptible to the allure of the liquid nitrogen and bravely tolerated the sting of the cryotherapy to the spots on my toes - viral clusters picked up from swimming lessons. I had earned the privilege of dumping the vapour out to dissipate across the clinic floor.
At that time, I didn't realize that years later W would become like a part of the family. Back for a visit during university, he asked if I remembered when I broke my arm. "Which time?" I replied drily. He chuckled at the memory. "Your mother said she didn't want to be one of those parents who always had their kid in the clinic, and that they wanted to see if your arm would get better. And then I looked at you, sitting there with a broken humerus. It had been three days." I laughed. I remembered that day when she picked me up from the wave pool; I hadn't gone in yet but I somehow contorted my fifth-grade self into my swimsuit. W had told us to go straight to the hospital and I walked out thinking how cool it would be to have my friends sign my plaster cast rather than mourning my fractured limb. I'd been fascinated by the novelty of modern medicine, and in many ways, it still hasn't worn off.
-
The nurse offered the sticker to me - a simple bribe for enduring the pain of the needle poke as I lay in my hospital bed. The glossy circle depicted a green dinosaur with a stethoscope and a clipboard; I lost it within the tangled bedsheets and never recovered it. I remember the accident clearly. "We must be at a red light," my five year old mind thought after the abrupt, violent stop. I leaned over and saw the windshield covered in a spiderweb of cracks. My brother's mouth spilled blood while my abdomen seared with pain from the seatbelt that harmed as well as hurt. The paramedics carried me to the ambulance and my pristine, brand new white Keds were lost in the fray. The week in the hospital is fuzzy; I don't recall the diagnosis but I remember my urgent request for my father to bring my Lion King toys to the hospital to stay with me. My focus may have been on Disney toys, stickers and canvas sneakers, but years later my mother told me about the phone call she received at work. "Your children have been in an accident. Please come to the hospital."
-
"Are you OK?" She had knelt down beside me.
I nodded at the police officer silently as I had no other response to offer. She hesitated for a moment, about to say something else, but decided against it and left. I wonder what she almost told the little girl she saw with the dark eyes and defensively hunched shoulders. She must have seen dozens of similar children on similar domestic calls; the collateral damage of the violent disputes that prompted police involvement. There could have been a list of incidents, analogous to a medical chart she could have seen and thus known about the history of shattered dishes and phones torn out of the wall that transpired at our address.
I understand now that there are some cases that get to you more than others. Perhaps when she saw me, she was reminded of a little girl she had at home, or of another child she had seen. There are some people who you think about on the drive home, and even weeks, months or years later, pop into your mind without warning. This little girl is okay now, but there are so many who aren't.
-
I never met him, but my mother spoke so highly of him. I wonder if the picture she painted for me would live up to him in reality. He deftly planned and orchestrated her radiation - as is common in medicine, poison in small, controlled doses is treatment (and sometimes cure). I accompanied her a day or two in her treatments; the technicians greeted her warmly. She brought them a cake at the end of her treatment course. "Always make sure you appreciate everyone," she advised me. "It's important to tell people and to show them how much you value them. Not enough people do that these days."
-
He was very young and his white coat was too big for him; it almost seemed like a costume. I don't remember his name as I only recall meeting him the one fateful time. He was likely doing an ICU fellowship as most staff wouldn't be in-house in the middle of the night. He faced us with a carefully arranged expression of gravity and compassion. It was one of the most difficult types of family meetings - there is a particularly poignant grief when a dying patient has both their parents and children in attendance. He spoke clearly and decisively and looked at each of us in turn. Medical management had reached its limits; there was nothing further to be done but to make her comfortable. When the tentative question of prognosis was raised, he looked gravely at us. "Hours." He was right.
-
"We're not going back there." My aunt gripped the steering wheel with angry intensity as we left the first and only appointment with the grief therapist whom our family doctor had suggested. I didn't fully understand what had transpired. She met with my brother and I separately before talking with my aunt. The woman was passionate; she struggled a bit to maintain collected professionalism while communicating her alarm. "These kids have been through a lot," she prefaced before asking my brother and I to leave the room. My aunt didn't receive it well; responding in her usual defensive and aggressive manner. She didn't appreciate the criticism that her treatment of two recently-bereaved children was less than appropriate. Rather than confront the notion that she was possibly at fault, she decided that we weren't allowed to go back. Despite never seeing her again, I will always remember her as what all clinicians must be - an advocate. Even in the face of my aunt's anger, she spoke up for the vulnerable. It did not help me at that moment, but it left a mark on me in the process.
-
"Have you ever been...traumatized before?" I stared at him with
incredulity. His response to my hesitancy of getting examined before
getting a routine vaccination stunned me. "No, I...just don't like
people touching me." I didn't want to explain my dislike of people
touching me or the way I cringed away from physical contact due to a
lack to positive examples thereof. I felt fine and just needed my
booster and wanted to get out. Well-meaning but poorly executed, I
learned from his awkwardness to be open with patients rather than pose
uncomfortable questions that can make them withdraw further
-
"You know, out of all my patients, you're one who probably doesn't need to come here anymore." He smiled as he said it and I understood this wasn't a reproach. Dr. D knew that the appointments weren't therapeutic just for their content but rather for the respite they provided. Every few weeks, on a Thursday afternoon I wouldn't have to go home to the unstable tempest of my aunt's house but rather had an escape. A bus ride downtown, exploring the city a little bit with an occasional trip to the mall before my 6 o'clock appointment on the sixth floor of the old white building. I would return home at night wistful and already waiting for the next afternoon of freedom.
"I lost my parents when I was younger, too." An avid singer and guitarist, he told me of an occasion in a larger family setting where he abruptly was unable to sing as usual. The trigger to his vocal paralysis wasn't clear but he alluded to the influence of previous losses. He built therapeutic rapport through shared experiences and helped me understand the times where I, too, lost my metaphorical voice. He never suggested prescribing medications. He knew that some wounds will bleed a long time before they start to heal, and as much as we may want to accelerate or change the outcome, the only thing we can do is support someone through that process.
-
I took to Dr. M immediately. A gregarious emergency medicine resident, he was friendly and open, and took me under his wing. As a fresh university graduate, I was relatively useless in the field hospital in post-earthquake Haiti but I followed him around like a puppy eager to learn. One of the field medics who'd been there for months asked me, "do you want to suture people up? You can practice on a lime." I declined the offer, acutely aware of my lack of credentials to do so, and instead stuck with Dr. M.
"This dressing is entirely too occlusive for this...and now it's infected." He frowned as he peeled back the layers of gauze and exposed the incision oozing pus. He dressed it appropriately and told me about wound healing. I sat with him, occasionally translating in my broken French when a formal translator was unavailable, and witnessed a steady stream of ailments that ranged from infection to injury to pregnancy and everything in between. Despite the language barrier and sweltering heat, he treated each patient with as much care and respect as the one before. There are some people who are truly born to do what they do, and Dr. M was born for emergency medicine.
A natural mentor, he was always patient with my barrage of never-ending questions and encouraged my interest in medicine. In the evenings after clinics, he'd draw diagrams for me and tell me about interesting cases he'd seen over the years. The day I left Haiti, I thanked him sincerely for his time and enrichment of my time there. "You'll go far," he said to me, and though my natural inclination is to deflect compliments, that simple statement has stayed with me.
Volume II to come.
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