Below is a response to #2, Write a letter to any patient… in SECTION THREE, “Realization,” of the Writing From Within: A Journey of Healing and Empowerment e-workbook:
I write this letter to you. For you may one day be my patient. You don’t know me, but your care will be in my hands. You don’t know me, but I will get to know you.
I will know you in a way — I will know why you can’t sleep flat in bed. Or why it is easier for you to sleep on one side and not the other. I will know how confusing all the information is you get from every person that walks into your room. I’m just thinking about Maya Angelou saying people will forget what you said or did but won’t forget how you made them feel.
I am struggling with that in this moment because the letter I want to write to you, my patient, is that what I say and what I do matter. Maybe not more than how you feel — how I made you feel. I am going to say things to encourage you to get up and walk — with all or none of the tubes you have coming out of you — whether none or ten — I’m going to do my best to try to get you up and moving. It is going to hurt — but I will give you medication to make it tolerable. You will feel pain. I can’t make the pain go away — that is a lie people tell you to make you feel better, but I can’t be that person.
I will help manage your pain so you can move and get better, but I won’t tell you it will be painless or comfortable, but I will be there to make sure you are safe. It may not feel nice to hear me say you need to improve how you care for yourself, but I will spend the time learning how to teach you the best way for you to take your medications…going back to knowing.
I know why your body may not be responding to treatments — you don’t feel well. I know it is because the infection you have is affecting your heart, your lungs, your kidneys, your liver. The reason for this is not what I want to focus on — I want you to know that I understand what you feel — although I don’t know what it means to have my belly cut open for surgery or have a tube coming out of my chest that every time you breathe it feels like someone is stealing your breath…that your deep breath is cut short by the piercing discomfort.
I understand I will be the person to have to say no to you or your family. For all my nos, there are so many yeses. Being in the hospital is unlike any other experience. Feeling robbed of your sense of self and being trapped in a hospital room tethered to the bed that is bolted to the wall is a real feeling — you are a prisoner to your illness. I just want (maybe not just) you to be as free as you can be within the confinements of the hospital room. So, I will say yes to help you.
You don’t know me, but I know you. I know how your heart beats in a rhythmic — ba bum ba bum ba bum — or not so rhythmic way. I will come in and ask Are you OK? – How are you feeling? because I saw your oxygen saturation drop — your blood pressure/HR change.
The little things I say and do are nothing in comparison to all I know is happening and I’m processing in my mind. I want to balance my professional expertise with your personal expertise. I quickly have to learn what you have spent your whole life knowing — your being…your feeling.
So, the few words I say to you, the purposeful actions I do may not make you feel how you want in the moment, but I hope we can learn to trust each other in this short time we have together because for 12 hours or one minute – I will impact how well you are after being in my care. This was hard…
