A Tale of a Broken Brain by Katie Vilaranda

Author:Katie Vilaranda [Vilaranda, Katie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780228807889
Publisher: Tellwell
Published: 2021-07-05T08:11:57+00:00

Chapter 16

Let the Adventure Begin

You never stop being a patient, even after being discharged from the hospital. There are post-op appointments, specialists to see, and therapy sessions to go to. Webster’s dictionary defines “patient” as: “A person under medical or surgical treatment; - correlative to physician or nurse. Like a physician, seeing his patient in a pestilent fever. In-patient who receives lodging and food, as treatment, in a hospital or an infirmary. Out-patient one who received advice and medicine, or treatment from an infirmary.”

When I hear the word “patient” I think of the homonym meaning of the term: “Able to remain calm and not become annoyed when waiting for a long time or when dealing with problems or difficult people.”

Learning patience is a valuable tool. It’s something you have to learn when you’re in the hospital and something I was not very good at. You have to learn how to be patient waiting for your test results, waiting for appointments, waiting for the phone calls for those appointments, learning your diagnosis, and ultimately waiting to regain your body and mind back. Accepting what has happened to you is a big waiting game too. This takes a while to wrap your mind around. Everything is a waiting game.

Learning how to be patient, particularly if you don’t know when or if you’ll ever enjoy some things in your life again, is very difficult. I guess it’s the uncertainty and constant watching of the clock’s hands slowly moving one tick at a time past each other until someone comes into your room to inform you of the good, the bad, or the ugly.

If you didn’t have patience before, this is an even more difficult task. The frustrating and emotional discovery of your body fighting against itself is unusual and unfamiliar. You have to begin to learn to accept help and push pride aside. Everything around you tests your patience. One of the most trying times in my life was patiently waiting four weeks for a little flick of my index finger to move two centimetres. It was well worth the wait.

When doctors came in with their team of residents, junior residents, and attending physicians, they would immediately begin with “This patient shows signs of” or “The patient displays increasing …” I assume this was to disconnect the emotional attachment from the actual disease that the patient was being diagnosed with and to maintain clinical boundaries. It’s easier to treat someone you’re not connected with emotionally, easier to fix something, poke and prod, explore all avenues with no affiliations, than with someone with whom you have a personal connection. This isn’t the case with all physicians, by any means. I do not want this to come across like that at all, but at times when you’re waiting to hear important and life-changing information, the presentation of your chart, name included, is meaningful to you.

During this entire experience, including relapses, I realized that the term “patient” didn’t fit. I’ve decided to remove this title, or more or less, change it.

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