the part of you that never gets to go home

Go ahead. Help yourself.

Imagine that tonight is Christmas eve. 

Outside, the sun is setting under a sky that could pass for cotton candy. The air is frigid but still. The street is busy with people hurrying home to begin celebrating the holiday. You, yourself, are looking forward to getting home to a crackling fire on the hearth and a traditional Christmas eve meal. The kids are home from college. Their gifts are wrapped and arranged under the tree. You breathe a sigh of relief and gratitude.

"I will honor Christmas in my heart

and try to keep it all the year."

~Charles Dickens~

It was a busy day. Among the patients you admitted through the emergency room were a child with asthma complicated by fever and pneumonia, an elderly gentleman who fractured his hip when he slipped on the ice outside his garage, an OD, and an out-of-state trucker with chest pain and an abnormal EKG. Orders have been written, tests scheduled, and rounds finished. Your patients are settled for the night. Your job for the day is done. It’s time to go home.

Except that part of you never goes home.

You can't forget the expression on the child’s face when he learned he would be spending Christmas in the hospital. He’d asked for a blue bicycle and he couldn’t stop crying because he wouldn’t be there to get it…and he wasn’t well enough to ride it, anyway.

You recall discussing her husband’s injury with the elderly man’s wife. She would be alone for Christmas now, and for weeks to follow. She couldn’t imagine how she would manage by herself.

The OD was not accidental. You are reminded of the most recent studies debunking the long-perpetuated myth that suicide rates peak around the holidays. In fact, suicides reach a statistical nadir in December. Still, opioid contamination keeps no schedule and leaves no clues. It will be a long vigil for this victim’s family overnight.

You learn that the trucker’s family is stuck at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport because of an unexpected blizzard. They wonder if he will survive this latest heart attack. Will they get to his bedside in time?

It’s Christmas eve. You get to go home. Your patients don’t.

"When you're sick, 

it's nice to know there are people

who await your recovery

as they might a holiday."

~Anton Chekhov~

This is a bi-polar time of the year, a time that highlights the irreconcilable discrepancies, emotional extremes, and divergent realities that prevent some people from celebrating the spirit of the holidays. There is poverty in contrast to wealth, sorrow instead of joy, cruelty as opposed to compassion, and of course, illness instead of health.

For those of us in the medical field who are taking our patients’ medical histories, exploring their symptoms, and fielding their pain when the rest of the world is celebrating joy and peace, it is a bittersweet season. Many of our patients will experience pain rather than comfort, grief instead gratitude, anger as opposed to joy, and anguish instead of peace. It won’t be merry or bright at all. They will be stuck with it…and in many ways, so will we.

Dickens wasn't referring to Christmas, but he could have been when, in “A Tale of Two Cities", he wrote :

"It was the best of times,

it was the worst of times...

it was the season of light,

it was the season of darkness,

it was the spring of hope,

it was the winter of despair."

~Charles Dickens~

He was writing in the 1800s, but he could have been writing today. This is the beauty of narrative...the concept and context of great storytelling endure across generations. Common themes repeat themselves. We realize we are connected in our joy and sorrow, victory and defeat, pleasure and pain with the rest of humanity all across time and space. And that is a sacred gift...a gift to each of us.

A Gift To Bring You

~Rumi~

You have no idea how hard I've looked

for a gift to bring you.

Nothing seemed right.

What's the point of bringing gold to the gold mine,

or water to the ocean?

Everything I came up with

was like taking spices to the Orient.

It's no good giving my heart and soul

because you already have these.

So I've brought you a mirror.

Look at yourself and remember me."

*

This Christmas, I wish you enough.

 

jan