One thing that strikes you when you deal with hospitals is that the patient ends up being just a name, a diagnosis, a procedure. That chasm between how you feel and how the system acts is a big part of the exhaustion that comes with being a caregiver.
You are worried sick about someone you love, and for whom you are doing all you can, including in some cases putting your own life on indefinite hold; on the other side, you inevitably find coldness.
To be clear, I am acutely aware that It couldn’t be any other way, because you’re literally one of thousands and at some point doctors and nurses have to protect themselves from becoming too emotionally invested. I’ve seen that with vets as well: younger vets will play with pets, older vets tend to go straight to business. Having had pets for a long time, I’ve witnessed once fresh vets become progressively hardened. They were always great, and never disrespectful; but exhaustion is real.
So seeing that with human doctors doesn’t surprise me, rationally. When my cousin passed away, a doctor friend who happened to care for him during his last few days, together with his doctor wife, called me to give me his condolences. I could definitely sense the moment he switched from old friend to professional doctor, going from being genuinely sorry to providing detailed and heartbreaking details in a somewhat detached tone.
On a larger scale, this detachment becomes disconnection. Doctors refer you to one another, but don’t really talk to one another; they only communicate through reports you carry around. I’m typing a draft of this at the hospital, waiting in the comletion of an exam whose resultis terrifying me to no end, and everyone in this waiting room has sheets of papers, envelopes, or even full cases. At least, on a small scale, these things are getting digitized: as long as you’re within the same hospital, doctors can access your data from past appointments, though it’s often quicker just to bring them printed paperwork.
So when it happens that sometimes a doctor remembers something minor, such as my joke about doing PET scans with bananas because they’re minimally radioactive, it frankly warms your heart. At the same time, expressing dread for an exam’s results, is generally met with a shrug: what can they do, after all? They can’t reassure you. They have to wait, just like you do. The difference is that you carry the weight of worry, and the devastating results of a bad result.
This ties in with the loneliness that one feels when these diagnoses arrive, and all the treatments and followups, and especially the ups and downs, that they entail. People whom you know and who love you are genuinely sorry, but ultimately it’s your problem. The worst happens at funerals: people come to the service, they may cry, but then they go back to their usual life, maybe just a little sadder. You don’t; you have to deal with the cataclysmic change that death brings. And what they say about the second year being the worst is true: the first anniversary may still be memorable for some, but after that it’s a terrible day only for you and those who were in the blast radious; the others may not even remember.
Again, this is not a complaint. It’s just taking stock of how it is. I have been on both sides of the barricades, the one who had to deal with death directly (more than once) and the one who learned about it about others; the one who provides care for an ailing parent, and the one who saw that happens to others.
I’m not even sure where I’m going with this. I suppose I just wanted to take it off my chest, after all that’s the whole point of writing. Maybe, if I had to ask something of others, is to be patient when someone they know is dealing with something terrible. It’s exhausting, for there is no break and no victory.