Can we tell a mother of the only child that his arm would be amputated as the distal pulses are not palpable, and they took too long to bring him to the hospital?
INTROSPECTION
A call going fine in the emergency department is something to be happy about, but pinning a hope? Maybe? The number of healthy people are finally exceeding the number of sick?
Maybe. Maybe not.
The problem with being a doctor is you can’t define ‘hope’ in layman terms. No, I don‘t mean hope is an elite thing (though it is, literally). The point here being we can’t define hope in its same actual meaning for our own sake as we simplify the definition of diseases for the patients. And here is where all the books fail. The grand knowledge accumulated in our minds and running through our veins fails. Can we tell a mother of the only child that his arm would be amputated as the distal pulses are not palpable, and they took too long to bring him to the hospital?
She would refuse to understand a word when her whole world is lying in front of her, unconscious and helpless. “Wait, wait doctor, you know there might be a way, just think about it, please? I have only this one child. He is too young, you know. Aap khoon ki kati hui rag ko dono taraf say jor dain, bohat asaan hai, ye karen aap.”
(You can stitch up both side of the crushed vein together, it’s simple; you can do it.)
Can we?
At that point, you might think empathy comes with a cost at times.
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It was the same, usual, cold December evening. Stable ward and its calm environment somehow seemed comforting. Evening rounds were done, so I went to the doctor’s office to get some rest and to continue reading the novel I had started a few days ago. But, stability in a hospital premises is an analogy. You can’t call a stage four lung cancer patient to be stable but temporarily the patient could be. Saturation kept improving, the labs came out static, nothing worsened ... not anymore. Until you find him hyperventilating and deteriorating a few hours later and collapsing within minutes.
The same 75-years-old patient who thanked you wholeheartedly with a big smile on his face when his lab reports came out fine earlier that very day. You can’t sit with his three grown-up grieving daughters on the bench and search for words to console them and make them understand the implications of what has happened to them or their father. They are daughters, you know.
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A 28-years-old woman came in. We weren’t able to take her blood pressure or pulse even, meaning she was in shock. Bruises all over her body, blood dripping from the backside of her head. She wasn’t able to open her eyes because of her bruises. But even with all of this, she was breathing. There was some life left in her, and she was able to feel the pain. No one accompanied her. We waited for any guardian to appear. Five minutes went by, then 10 minutes...
“My sister’s here,” A young man came screaming in.
“What happened?” an obvious question.
He looked down, turning pale. “Umm ... I don’t know. She was ... in her husband’s house.” He gathered up some words, stuttering.
It was crystal clear what happened there, written on his face. It was my turn to try to gather some courage.
I pitied the poor soul, contemplating her life, felt sorry for her, like the world stopped for a while until...
“Another patient is here...” yelled a colleague. I popped out of my thoughts. Few in a millions. Ironically, spending some time empathising with one soul will reult in the neglect for another. Sigh.
I moved on.
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“You are getting better, Baba Ji. It will be your final surgery.” Telling this to a 60-years-old patient when you have observed him improve in the last one week is rewarding. And there, you can see the light in his eyes, bright and shiny, when deep down you are eliminating the possibilities of what worse could happen and what not, based on his risk factors alone. But we can keep these for another time for discussion. The patient is happy, his obedient and very caring son is happy.
“I want you two to do my surgery. It would be better if both of you, doctors, are there with me in operation theatre.” An unexpected request.
“Of course, we will be right with you when you leave from here. The surgery will go well, in sha Allah, don’t worry.”
The surgery did go well and he did came back to the ward, but for some time. A few hours later, it’s back to being normal. The risk factors were too harsh to overcome. He passed away at 2am. His son had no words. We had no words. And he was just one patient out of all others.
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Limitations are always there, being a strong person is a very subjective opinion. You can’t measure one’s grief on the scale of humanity, it’s impossible.
You need to let your emotions out from time to time before it gets inevitable for them to burst out of a chamber. The world has its own strange orders. It can’t make people immune to their grievances, though it should. There’s a lot of suffering in this world. You start counting and at some point your mind will just give up then and there. You have to breathe from time to time. You can’t forget that you’re a human. Can you?
And yes being a doctor is cool. It is cool to sit somewhere in the evening after a tiresome day and put aside your bottled up emotions to eat your dinner like a normal human being. It’s just that, someday, dictionaries have to redefine the word ‘cool’.
