Malcontented

It was one of those days.  The alarm clock rang several hours before I was ready.  The memory of the warm bed remained there even as I got ready to run for the train.  I think I left part of my brain on the pillow, for I was still in a daze at the start of my day. I yearned for coffee.
Everyone has these days. It was all about me. How hard it was to get to work.  How I really did not want to go to work.  How much work there was to do.  How I don't know what is happening next.  I was grumpy.  I was "not on."



  At first I thought my morning consisted of one disaster after another.  A code on a patient down the hall from mine-- I ran that code.  One patient who needed urgent surgery.  A chance meeting of a former patient who had suddenly gone blind. Rounding on several patients under our care who have been in the hospital for months.  At some point during the day, and it is funny that I don't remember when, I thought about each one of those people.  What their day must be like.  My day wasn't one disaster after another, it was one lesson after another. 

One thing about working in medicine.  I am always learning. New techniques, new ideas, new studies.  Today I had a little lesson in perspective, humility.
Today's lesson was about grace.
One of my patients was admitted in February.  She is a small, frail woman in her thirties.  She looks older than me.  She greeted us with a smile and entreated us to take some chocolate.  She can't eat and gets all her nutrition intravenously.  She loves chocolate; so she buys it to give away to us.  One night, before going home, I found all the nurses on her ward were setting down to a large  "take away"  meal.   When I asked who had arranged such a feast, they pointed to her room.  She had bought them all dinner and had her mother deliver it.  Yes, she has some bad days.  Mostly, she triumphs at small successes.  Like today, she got out of bed with help. Stood for a few seconds and made it into the chair next to her hospital bed. 

Tonight on the train, I tried to go back, to remember each person and imagine the day through their eyes.

None of these patients. NOT ONE complained.
Most of them thanked me.
and I thought I was tired.