Residency Diaries Series #10: Alleviating Suffering

5/10/2020 Sunday 12:14am

 Today (5/9) was my last day in the neuro ICU. I had a very gratifying experience of delivering a newly paraplegic patient her cellphone. Being in the ICU is… a terrifying experience, especially if you’re awake and even more so if you are newly paralyzed from chest down after a car accident. Hospital in COVID pandemic is a weird place and we haven’t been allowing any visitors unless the patient is actively dying. I had been speaking with the patient’s husband and arranging speaker phone conversations daily. The husband, despite the ridiculous situation that is only speaking with his very sick wife once a day, has been extremely gracious and grateful and patient… Yesterday I suggested that if he is able to bring the patient’s cell phone to just outside of the hospital lobby I would be able to pick it up and bring it up to the patient. He happily agreed and as my final kind act in the neuro ICU I was able to make that delivery happen. He brought a box of cookies for the ICU staff which was also very nice. 

I’ve been thinking that overall this residency has made me a worse person. I feel like I have less compassion. I feel much less in general whether the emotion is supposed to be a happy one or a sad one. I also feel like I just don’t care about anything anymore. But it’s the small, unexpected events-- like delivering a cell phone or manually disimpacting the same paraplegic woman who had literally rock-caliber stool stuck in her rectum for days who afterwards started having bowel movements again... it’s things like these that make me feel like I’m making an impact. I’m doing some things that not even a family member will do. I alleviated suffering. Today. And that made today a good day.