
I vividly remember walking out of my first office visit with my new patient, Petra, feeling embarrassed and indignant.
The visit had started out pretty standard, as most do. I knocked, introduced myself, we shook hands, and I took my seat on the stool, she on the chair in the corner of the room, about 4 feet apart from each other.
She was petite, had a weathered face and a short haircut, reminiscent of the one my grade school PE teacher had. She looked stern. When I learned she was a retired teacher it was not a jump to imagine her as one of those teachers most students feared. The one you hoped wouldn’t call on you. The one you hoped wouldn’t notice you at all so you could leave class unscathed.
“So, do you want to know why I’m here or what?”
“I sure do,” I say.
Silence.
“Well, are you going to ask me?”
I had assumed our prior exchange was an invitation to her to tell me why she was here. I had assumed wrong.
“Why are you here today, Petra? What can I help you with?”
“Didn’t you look at my chart? I told that other lady why I was here.”
OMG I thought to myself. Am I on candid camera?
Immediately after addressing her concern for the day she asked me why I hadn’t recommended a shingles vaccine for her. “Shouldn’t you have recommended that for me since I’m 60?”
She then proceeded to quiz me on every aspect of the history of, manufacturing of and efficacy of Zostavax, and when there were questions I couldn’t answer and offered to look up in the room with her she said she was less interested in the answer and more wanted to know if I knew the answer.
“I’m surprised a doctor would have to look up that information” she said. “Shouldn’t you know that already?”
Well, maybe lady, but obviously I don’t.
And so was our first visit.
I remember thinking, Why did it seem like she was trying to get me to slip up or find gaps in my knowledge on purpose and just for the fun of it? Who does that? But maybe she was right and I should have known that information?
Indignant and embarrassed.
I didn’t think I’d ever see Petra again. I had hoped I wouldn’t see Petra again.
Instead, Petra continued to see me for 6 more years. At first, every time I saw her name I’d groan and prepare myself for battle. And she didn’t disappoint, always rough around the edges and prepared with a “quiz”, ready to question my schooling when I didn’t know an answer.
I was always kind to her. Not out of some inherent niceness in me, but because I hoped in being kind she would stop looking for deficiencies in my knowledge and I could get out of the room sooner.
Then one day, maybe 3 years into knowing her, I told her I was surprised she kept coming back to me as she didn’t seem that confident in my knowledge. She told me she liked that I would admit to not knowing something and look it up with her. She told me how much she respected and appreciated that. That she’d never had a doctor do that.
And then the grilling stopped. And she seemed to soften. And I stopped preparing for battle. And she softened some more.
And then I had to tell her she had a spot on her lung. And then that she had lung cancer. And then that it looked like she was in the clear! And then, a few months later, that it had spread to her brain.
That was another visit I’ll never forget. She was seeing me for back pain and mentioned “oh hey, my oncologist ordered a brain MRI just to be safe and I had it done this morning, do you think the results are in yet?”
I told her I’d look.
They were in, but I didn’t say such yet. Instead, I pretended I was still looking through her chart to see if the results were in. A quick scan of the results had told me the cancer had spread to her brain and I was debating lying and telling her the results weren’t in yet.
I have no idea how much time passed as I was pretending and debating, but eventually I knew what I wanted to do.
“Petra, they’re here. Are you ready for your results?”
“Yes.”
“Come over here and sit by me, let’s look at this together.”
“Okay.”
She lived another year and had a pretty good quality of life until the last 3 weeks when she deteriorated quickly.
She saw me every 8-10 weeks that last year. These were primarily “social visits” as we docs call them. Petra let me in to be part of her experience of dying, and it was beautiful. And scary. And heartwarming. And heartbreaking.
We let ourselves feel all the feels. We laughed and cried and got annoyed with each other and hugged a lot. She shared her weekend “girls” trip in which she picked out her urn for her ashes: a warm, cozy, gorgeous wooden vessel. We talked about our beliefs regarding what happens after death. We compared our golf games. We talked about families and relationships. She talked about what changed for her after getting a terminal diagnosis, while most things were eerily the same and the world kept turning.
At one of our last visits she said “I can’t imagine what it must have been like for you that day to give me the news of my brain MRI results. That must have been so hard. Thank you.”
I felt so fully human during and after these visits I wondered what to call my life experience the rest of the time if not fully human.
I spend so much of my time jumping to the next thing, and the thing after that, living a few minutes to hours to days in the future, rarely fully present. I’m convinced this keeps us glossing over people, places, things and emotions, almost hovering just above our life, robbing us of the richness life has to offer when we’re actually there with it and for it. All of it.
Petra and I were THERE during that last year of office visits.
How would I react today if meeting Petra for the first time? I like to think I’d smile at and relax into the awkwardness of the visit, not take her questions and comments personally, and be curious about her, what made her tick. I like that version of me better than the version that did meet her for the first time 6 years ago.
But had I been that version of myself then, would our relationship have played out the same? Would we have grown and evolved and enriched each others’ lives as we did? I guess I’ll never know.
But I like to think we both were exactly who we needed to be when we needed to be and that everything happened just as it should.
Thank you for sharing this experience. This is an important reminder that even in difficult or uncomfotable times, we need to look deeper for the lessons or blessings that might be there to enrich our lives. Ispiring reminder of the personal and emotional investment that doctors and nurses have with their patients. Thank you…
I LOVE reading stories that remind me of such, to connect with my humanity, to search for the lessons and blessings as you say, so I wanted to share one of my own. I’m so humbled and honored that this story connected with you in that way. Thank you for reading and commenting!
Ooooohhhhh Mellie…what an incredible story of transformation…trust…and yes…even unconditional love. I have faced many such tough conversations in my nursing career…hospital stays were much longer “back then” so in the individuals with those tough diagnoses, I could get to know them and their families more intimately. But the one that stands out to me the most is Ruben…he was brought into the hospital by ambulance…an alcoholic…living on the streets. He was dirty, he smelled horribly, his finger and toe nails were long, and his hair was long, stringy and unwashed. When I came on shift, as assignments were being made, not one other nurse wanted to take Ruben as a patient. I told my head nurse that if he was the only patient I had, I would gladly care for him…agreed. For the next three days, as Ruben was de-toxing with limited cognitive response, I bathed him, cut his hair, trimmed his nails, and sang to him. I told him how much God loved him, and how valuable his life was. And then…I had several days off and Ruben was discharged. I never saw him again but prayed for him often…Yes, Dr. Mellie…God has a way of bringing beauty from the ashes of our lives and the lives of those we serve…and it is no coincidence that we are privileged to have a part in it all. I am SO SO proud of you Mel. You are compassionate, caring, and vulnerable. You are right smack in the middle of the story God has for you and such a blessing to your patients…and to those of us who get to watch!!!
Love this so much! What a beautiful story with Ruben. I love the idea of unconditional love for ourselves and all the humans. It’s a place I’ve dabbled in living in and love it when I find it. I hope to be mindful enough in this lifetime to spend more and more time in that space of unconditional love so it becomes more and more automatic.
oh yes Mellie…
So thankful you and Petra let each other “in.” And, so thankful you let all of us “in” too.
Thank you so much for reading and for coming “in” with us!