Tragedy

The past few weeks have presented me and my family with the opportunity to work through the rigors of PA school while undergoing family tragedy.  There have been a number of aspects to this struggle, as most of you have experienced with your own personal tragedies.  We are by no means unique in this, but I am relating the story to share the experience with others so that they might better understand or at least commiserate with PA students and students of other medical professions.  Again I apologize for being purposefully vague, but the details belong to us.

It began about three weeks ago when a routine doctor visit yielded bad news.  News that we had dreaded, yet it came nonetheless.  I was thankful for compassionate preceptors who allowed me some time to deal with the bad news, but the next day I was back at work trying to make good decisions and be precise through a muddied mind, distracted (gladly so) by grief.  I was grateful that I had a supportive environment and a can-do family, otherwise I would have been unable to bear the weight of everything going on.

The second chapter (or the last half of the first) came today - another phone call striking me in my emotional gut, leaving me distracted and unable to think about anything but my family for quite a while.  But today, right after the phone call, I entered a patient room and the nice lady sitting there immediately started crying.  It seems our life tragedies had coincided on this day.  The difficulty I had was that my mind wanted to be elsewhere, my emotions were flowing in the equivalent of a re-entry tachy-arrhythmia - feeding upon themselves and blunting my empathy.  I was able to push it aside for our hour-long (though it was only intended to be a 1/2 hour) appointment and we even made some progress... for the patient.  Following that patient, I saw a lady I have been treating for depression and we worked through her struggles.  At the end of this day, my mind is numb, I lack much emotion and despite the weight of what is going on around me, I feel less than engaged, not as present as I should be. 

Thus today I had a valuable experience - balancing the emotional needs of my patients with the emotional needs of my family have become truly competing demands and I have worked through the first in what I am sure will be a long series of such episodes.  I can't say I have achieved success - it is too early to tell.  But I have survived the day, my family is resting at apparent peace, and my patients ambled back through the waiting room with many a thank you, appearing content with meds in the pharmacy and consults/referrals ordered. 

God is good, even in times of great trial.  May we never forget it.