Twenty-Nine

I kept a running tally, and when everything settled down, I confirmed my count: my surgical attending, an emergency medicine attending, two triage nurses, multiple EMTs, other junior surgical residents, two physician assistants, a recorder, more bedside nurses, an emergency medicine resident at the head of the bed, a medical student, the X-ray technologist, and others, including myself, a senior surgical resident to the patient’s left.

A young man had been shot in the leg. The headline might have read something to the effect of Another Victim of Gun Violence in Cleveland. He was bleeding but not catastrophically. His vitals were normal, his pulses intact, but his thigh was swollen and slightly deformed. He was anxious, naturally, and sweating profusely. The pain must have been unbearable judging by the creative strings of profanity he shouted through gritted teeth. Scout films confirmed a broken femur. Our orthopedic surgery colleagues joined us in the trauma bay and soon after booked him for surgery.

In the moments leading up to this trauma activation, I was glued to my phone, my main source of news from the front and sometimes the quickest way for me to learn about relatives and familiar neighborhoods. Fourteen killed in an airstrike, I’ll read. An entire building demolished. Two children missing, still buried in the rubble, presumed dead. And now another Israeli airstrike. This time the courtyard of a hospital. The casualty count can’t be confirmed; bodies are strewn everywhere. Are they dead or dying? Were they already here for medical care, only to become victims again? Who does this limb belong to? Continue reading “Twenty-Nine”

Politics in the workplace

Part of the standard doctrine we are taught, in parallel with doing no harm, is that the service of providing care to another is and must remain entirely apolitical. I have always thought this to be wrong.

There is nothing apolitical or politically neutral in providing care to the ill, the injured, the scared, or the underserved;

in establishing a free clinic for the uninsured;

in watching a patient die but having to sanitize your hands and immediately visit another patient without letting them see the cracks in your shield;

in reviewing radiographs to weigh your suspicion of elderly abuse;

in demanding the prison guard leave the room to provide the county inmate even a modicum of privacy;

in risking your license by subverting elected officials who wish to outlaw or restrict maternal health services;

in referring a drug-dependent patient to a methadone clinic or two;

in rapidly transfusing blood into a pregnant woman hit by an intoxicated driver who, by the way, happens to be recovering rapidly in the adjacent trauma bay; Continue reading “Politics in the workplace”

On family and all that is left at 7 pm

His kidneys failed, I’m told. The both of them. Tubes crisscross over and under his bed in a room crowded with empty seats, fuzzy television screens, useless nightstands, and a whiteboard that reads: “Goal: Increase activity”.

The lights are turned off and it’s 7 pm. Flash back to the days when we were young and restless.

With muddied hands (mama told us to stay away from the puddles but we never listened) we run to the kitchen sink without making eye contact. Because once we make eye contact, mama gives us that look that means we’d better be in bed in less than five. She asks whether we’re tired. “No,” we say, but we are. We are just too young and too proud to admit it. And at 7 pm, the lights go off.

Flash forward to the days when we outgrow ourselves.

I don’t know what to say. Five of us are in the room now—four standing, none sitting. I’m the last to shake his hand, to give him that squeeze that, when I was a teen, all the married Arab men would advise me about. Continue reading “On family and all that is left at 7 pm”

Big Day

Something like No Problem by the Chet Baker Quartet was playing in the ICU. It was one o’clock in the dark of the night. The barbershop was open for business.

Having been assigned to the Trauma ICU for the past week, I was comfortably familiar with the patients and their stories. I rounded on the unit at the start of my shift, making small adjustments here and there and hoping for a quiet night.

I began by saying my hellos to the family in bed 2, each relative clutching a hand and praying that the young woman, many years my junior, whose brain had swollen as a result of her injuries, would win the fight for her life. Visiting hours had ended but they were allowed to stay late given the circumstances. I drew the curtain behind me.

At the other end of the unit, the woman in bed 13 was no longer calling out or squirming restlessly. She had learned earlier in the day that she was the sole survivor of the crash. Her eyes remained fixed on the wall clock when I entered the room as though she was counting down the minutes until she could join her husband again. I stepped out just as silently as I had come in. To do this job, you learn to compartmentalize. I take walks. Continue reading “Big Day”

Mother Tongue

On the way, echoing softly around the corner and down the hallway, I hear it. Maybe I’m imagining it – I’ve only slept four hours in the last two days – but I swear I heard a soft K and delicate L wrap around a guttural H. I could recognize these sounds anywhere.

I have to see someone. Nothing urgent, just a quick check. For the anxious or tired patients, especially those so soon out of surgery, I like to tuck them in at night. It’s a miracle move, probably the greatest secret in medicine, more tangibly impactful than the flowcharts and electronic doctoring that dominate much of my training.

I am a building away. I can take the second floor shortcut and be there in a few, but I can’t escape the sound of my mother tongue. I take a right instead, my focus now at odds with my curiosity. I realize I have been homesick this whole time and I wonder what or who I will see.

For years I have lived far from home, away from family and community. Short of a phone call, my connection to home is distant and tired. My patients are my best friends, I am afraid, and my thorough notes a reflection of our time together, fleeting conversations I am known to take too seriously. Continue reading “Mother Tongue”

Hallway Dinner

I leave the hospital most days around seven o’clock and reach home by the time dinner preparations are in full swing. I can make out the sweet symphony of kitchen sounds through the old wooden doors if I listen closely enough. Occasionally, if I’m lucky, the neighbor across from me has her door propped open ever so slightly, enough for me to appreciate faint sizzles and the thud of wooden spoons, music to my ears.

As I walk down the hall to collect my mail, I am reminded of the value of our sense of smell. I arrive to fish – salmon, I think – on Saturday. Sunday is pizza day for the family living to the left, Szechuan stir-fry for the family to the right. Broccoli and cornbread on Monday. Someone left something in the oven for too long on Tuesday but the char complements the notes of chile de árbol I pick up from further down the way. Wednesday is an amalgamation of garlic, sweet potato, and something peppery. I imagine the spread of a potluck right now. Thursday smells like bread and, two doors down, fish again. I feel connected and international. Continue reading “Hallway Dinner”