From the where I am, on the outside, stuck in the impossible margins of trying to Stay Out Of The Way and Be Assertive And Available, much of my time is spent standing back and watching. I watch my attending as he establishes a rapid relationship of trust, attention, and admiration in 3 minutes 45 seconds, flat. Nearly every time. I study what he says, how he says, the things he reveals, the ones he does not. I listen to his daily litany of unyielding expectation even though I myself am ruefully far from reaching it.
I watch as everyone gathers around their own: nurses to nurses, aids to aids, students of each discipline to each other. I notice the alignments we make, the ones we do not, and the foundations (reasons) of everything we do, and do not do.
Today I watched a grown woman undress her mother: elderly, frail, cachetic, hypertonic, frozen and unresponsive. I watched as the daughter leaned her forward, pulled her thin yellow night gown over her head and dressed in her a t-shirt, possibly one of her own. I watched as she moved her rigid hands to the side, making room for the sleeves, adjusting the collar, tucking in the ends. I watched her, singly softly, operating with such deft tenderness that will leave me breathless for days. I did not know her. Or her mother. Ever. Neither of them were patients of mine. I do not know for how long her mother's ability to smile or frown, to laugh or pout was lost to the permanent distortion of muscle wasting and grimace. But I do know that in that tiny, perfect, stolen moment I knew nothing else beyond the fact that we are each so human. We are so vulnerable, so delicate, so similar, so unique.
It is so easy to loose the intention, the reason, the cause. It is so compelling and distracting and instantly rewarding to divert your attention to the petty and mundane and caustic inconveniences of every day life, no matter where you are. Medicine is no different and so different. It is beautiful and cruel, and all at once.
It is a strange, sad privilege to be privy to such unusually private moments of living, dying. It is a strange, sad privilege to be in a world that makes our sicknesses, frailties, our failing, falling structures such a spectacle to witness. It is beautiful and cruel, and it is all of it at once.
