a book of ordinary people

  I was not supposed to work that late last night, I mean I was not even supposed to work last night period. I was planning to go to a feng shui workshop and meet up with the interior designer and see if I like her enough to hire her. But then I got called in last minute, it was a favor to colleague who had to attend his son's graduation or something...
   It seemed like a quiet night and I was minding my own business, until another colleague showed me her chart :" Holy crap this girl really wanted to take her own life, look at all the meds that she took." he said. The hotel's cleaning lady found her on the floor of her hotel room unresponsive with a note by her bedside, a hotel in the middle of nowhere.  She was so far out, that they had to bring her to our hospital which is better equipped for her situation.
   The list of the meds that she took went on and on, some of them were her own and some were not. One thing that caught my eyes was long actin insulin, and she was not even diabetic. It seemed like she planned the whole thing for a long time and she knew well too well what she was doing. She really wanted to end her pain.  I looked at her name and I just said :" Oh well and she is Persian too. I bet if I facebook her,we will end up having couple of mutual friends too."  And now I wish I had not said that. I looked at her last name again and something piqued my interest, it was too familiar. One facebook search later and I saw her wedding picture standing next to her father.  He was the man....
    My father said of him :" He served a lot, too many of us, he saved too many lives. I was honored to be his student in med school, and also honored to be his friend."
  I am not sure how did the rest of the night went, but I know I was shocked and confused. I knew that last name well too well, anybody my age who grew up where I grew up knew that last name and had nothing but love and respect for it.  It belonged to a man who did nothing but good to so many people for so many years, saved so many lives in the operating room and yet I was here in ICU witnessing his daughter being intubated and sedated.
   The doctor asked for the social worker to find out who her family is and contact them in the morning. I wanted to tell her, just Google her  last name and her dad will be the first result. I felt like I had to let my coworker about how prominent her family is, where she comes from. I just wanted him not to judge her. Granted she was on tons of meds, for variety of condition. Pain, ADHD, PTSD, depression, nausea and so on... But still, I felt a sense of connection.
  It is one of the rare moments in the life of a healthcare professional when that emotional barrier that you have erected for the sake of yourself and your patients goes down and you become a normal person.  I knew her, somehow we shared same experiences in life, there was a sense of connection.
 I looked at her facebook pictures and I saw the warning signs: the artistic picture of shattered glasses and one from death and those fucking " LIKES," the people who saw her but never actually saw her.
I knew that calling her family is out of question, they have to find out through legal avenues. I am not the one who intrudes or violates privacy laws. I just wish I could have done more, I wondered if I could have gone down to her room hold her hands and say something to her in Farsi, " you think it will be soothing?" I asked my coworker  and he just nodded.. Who knows?
 And then I told him :" I need to find a job where people are happier.." sometimes it is just too much pain to take in.
   When I got off, I called my mother  and then I called a friend. I needed to talk to someone I needed not to be with myself alone.  I went to bed late after looking through her facebook page again crying and had wacky dreams..
   The next day I talked to my sister and she said it must have been more than familiarity that has hit me this hard. Something about her must have resonated deep down...
   I told her I am broken down and tired, and how I almost took a job in pheonix and wanted to leave everything behind. " Nothing is working here anymore, it seems like everything is falling apart..." I told her. She said I had to persevere and try to make things work....
     They say everybody who comes to your life has a gift of compassion, and I wonder what was this fragile, suicidal girl's gift  to me in the middle of a night in ICU?
    Maybe she was there to remind me that I am a human being and its ok to be sad, down and hurt sometimes.. Its ok to feel. 
  I worry about her, I worry that she gets her health back  but then has to go back and face the same things that she decided she did not want to deal with anymore.  And I want her to live, I want her to live her best life. She is so pretty, so young, so artistic. I am afraid that if she leaves us behind all that her father did in his lifetime will mean nothing to him. All those eyes that he gave vision to...
 I root for her and for myself to find our happy selves once again and live the life that we were meant to live...
  I pray for all our pains to go away.....
   

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 18, 2014 at 10:29 PM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.