Recounts of Patient Encounters Postcard

Recounts of Patient Encounters

by Amanda Davis

24 days ago, healthy

Now blood cancer

Hospitalization, chemo, 81 years old

The odds? Not good.

Did anyone ask what you want?

You do well until you don’t

Unrelenting fever, shaking, arrhythmias

Code.

Tubes of your blood in my right, crying wife’s hand in my left

24 days later,

Deceased.

All you want is to be held

I sneak away between tasks to see you

You giggle, you clap

You blow kisses to your fans

But I am sad.

They may not see through the show,

I know you are this way because you’ve been alone,

Neglected.

Pathology not personality.

We all stare at the chart;

A medical miracle.

You shouldn’t be alive.

I see you for myself.

You don’t speak, you don’t look at me.

You are a collection of organs,

Holding on by a thread.

A medical miracle.

This time I think

It’d be better if you weren’t.

“I’m dying you know”

I know, but I don’t say so.

I nod.

Normally it’s all jokes, this is new.

Today is a speech on what’s important in life

You’re younger than my parents.

You hug me.

“Hope to see you at the store”

“More likely the hospital parking lot.”

A basketball team of orphaned kids in Chicago is your dream

Harmless, no?

You found actual children to take.

More concerning.

Up on meds, delusion diminishes.

You become someone I’d befriend at a bar.

Meds will eventually ruin your body, but cure your mind

For now.

You’re welcome, I guess.

Every morning the same routine

Questions, I unwrap, you scream

You become scared of me and the pain I represent

You beg me not to take your foot

I promise not to

You say you have to go to your country

I worry that your foot will cost your life

I check your chart everyday,

Even though I’m not taking care of you anymore.

You’re dying. It’s just a matter of time.

It’s unfair.

You won’t go to prom, won’t have your first love

So much pain, yet you’re always smiling, joking, kind.

Your 18th birthday, your last day.

Unfair.

You don’t know why you’re here

You don’t know your medical history

You don’t know your meds

But you want me to help you.

I’m annoyed.

What do you expect me to do?

Fabricate out of thin air?

I take a deep breath

And remember it isn’t just your fault.

We’re the only people in the OR

You’re crying

I understand enough Spanish to know

You’re begging me for help; the pain is immense

We rolled you directly here

I don’t know what to say

I’m just the student

I breathe a sigh of relief when the doctor comes back

Why am I always cold?

Why am I not hungry anymore?

Why do I not want to get out of bed anymore?

I try to muster the words

You’re dying

But I can’t.

I defer to something about expected changes in older adults

You’re 95 after all.

95 and dying.

 

I was introduced to fifty word poems in a humanities workshop and the concept stuck with meWhen I began my clinical rotations is when I realized how significant and impactful patient interactions can beIn both positive and negative ways As a way to both unpack those moments and remember the patients I began writing fifty word poems as reflections The poems are a tool for my mental health as a caretaker because they allow me to both sit with my emotions and release them.