Flying to Nowhere
There is a sort of sadness one feels when you are doing something for the last time. A sadness so often lacking because we often don’t recognize the last.
RA changed my life
There must have been a day, a day where I was fine, and then the next day I noticed that I was not, and then although I felt better at times, it was never like it was before.
There is a curiosity that drives me. Why would this happen? Do you not feel the urge to understand? Understand that there is a better explanation.
Not just the explanation that says there are too many factors at play? We understand so little, I think sometimes that is because we remember so little. Our memory fades, it disappears, it is pruned, like a pear tree. Pear trees should be pruned in the spring, two weeks after the late frost.
Are our memories also pruned when our brains lay dormant? Pruned at a time when the cuts will heal before it is time to spring into action again? It is well documented in the literature that when we are faced with an adverse event, we tend to prevail. Resilience is the mean, and not being resilient is an outlier.
Is it easier to say that something is an act of God? Does it take responsibility away from us. It feels nice sometimes not to be responsible. But does that not also take away our control? The ability to control your life and change your outcomes? In medicine we are always looking at outcomes. Patient outcomes drive science. It helps remind me that the point of medicine in general is to improve the outcome for our patients.
Everyone experiences suffering
There is something wrong with everyone. I think about this so often working at the hospital. Many of the people that come into the ER look fine, but some of them won’t ever leave the hospital. I wonder sometimes how many of them know that they just experienced a last. I wonder why we don’t have more compassion for each other. Why do so many of us feel as though we are not being listened to, or heard, when for the most part, we all have the same story to tell. Do you ever feel like you’ve reached the light that ends in a tunnel?
This or That
Do you feel like others truly listen to you?
We are humans, not just RA patients
I always thought it was funny when consult notes in the ER from upstairs doctors would say “it was a pleasure taking part in the care of so and so”. But it is actually not funny at all. It should be, and sometimes I really feel that it is, a genuine pleasure to take care of patients. It is wonderful to be trusted, and to get a glimpse into the lives of these, not just patients, but people. People with family’s and stories who have lived full lives, whatever that means to them. I really have come to believe that having RA has given me the ability to understand other peoples pain better.
Maybe it is best that we do not recognize the last. Our brains muddle things sufficiently, to make sure that resilience is the mean, and to give us the strength to keep pushing on, no matter what.
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