Thread by @TheRealDoctorT

My dad looks at me with a smile. “You sure you only want that one? You can have more than one candy bar, if you want.”

My 7 year-old brain mulls it over. “Then what will everyone else have?”

The shopkeeper rings up our groceries.

Beep. Beep. Beep. 1/

Beep. Beep. Beep.

The sounds of the heart monitor jar me from my reverie.

The transport team walks past me. They’re all wearing full PPE.

The patient is on a stretcher, in a see-through plastic tent. COVID transport.

It used to look alien. Now I’ve seen them enough. 2/

The mood in the hospital has decidedly shifted.

Where before there was a nervous tension, there is now a grim resolve.

I imagine this is what goes through a ship captain’s mind when trying to crest a towering wave.

To turn away risks capsizing.

We have to push through. 3/

The overhead announcements used to bring a pang of apprehension.

“Attention, transport team to ER.”

Reminders that the tide was rising, the monster was prowling.

Now they happen with numbing regularity.

Let the tide rise. Let the monster rage.

Armor up, and carry on. 4/

I am keenly aware of my privilege as a physician.

When I round in the COVID units, I don’t enter rooms unless I have to.

Usually I’m communicating with the nurse through the glass door, or via a phone/iPad.

The nurses are immersed in this, constantly.

Caring. Intensively. 5/

Their camaraderie is strong, but it’s being tested.

They spend most of the day isolated from everyone. And many of the faces they see now are unfamiliar, as nurses are pulled from other floors such as labor and delivery, or from other cities entirely.

It isn’t easy. 6/

I realized today just how young some of these patients are. Some of the sickest ones are far younger than me.

I mean, I knew it. But I didn’t know it.

We keep unpleasant facts at arm’s length sometimes. We rarely embrace them.

We need to embrace our own mortality. 7/

Things change when you can finally see each precious grain of sand in the hourglass.

The intensivist on call today is a good man. He has a dry sense of humor, and is blessed with that rare gift (curse?) of sensing danger before it happens.

“Man.”

He’s staring at a monitor. 8/

I look to him from my screen. “What is it?”

He gestures at a series of numbers on the screen.

Rows and rows of data.

Our digital window into the havoc the monster is wreaking.

“I don’t think they’re gonna make it.”

His face is drawn, tired.

“But... I could be wrong.” 9/

He falls silent, and I am as well.

I feel the warmth of my breath through my mask, snaking twin trails up past my eyes to fog my glasses.

Who can see clearly these days?

The intensivist gets up from his workstation. “I gotta go see this one.”

“Good luck,” I nod. 10/

As he leaves, the intensivist offers me a few sage words of advice.

“Screw COVID.”

I nod, repeating it under my breath.

After he leaves, it’s just me in the dictation room. I’m waiting on a patient to come up from the ER.

On a whim, I pull up Google and type a search. 11/

“What happens when you die?”

I click, “search.”

Google obliges.

I scroll.

Philosophical answers. Religious answers. Biological answers.

Answers to the one question nobody can definitively answer, yet everyone is guaranteed to, someday.

No matter.

I am alive. 12/

I wait for five minutes, then ten, then fifteen. My patient still hasn’t arrived.

The intensivist returns. “You’re still here? Well, I was wrong about that one. She’ll probably make it, after all.”

I smile. “Awesome!”

It’s good news.

Let me embrace it, instead. 13/

As difficult as the daily grind is, as numbing as it can be, there are still no words for the elation that comes with a “save.”

To face the monster, and send it back to the shadows.

There is no experience quite as ... human.

To keep the flame of life flickering. 14/

As the intensivist sits down again and starts typing, he resumes our ongoing conversation.

“COVID hits us in this perfect weak spot, you know? The intersection of all these things.”

I nod, “Yeah.”

“Empathy. Conspiracy. Denial. Misinformation. Politics.”

I nod again. 15/

“I mean, look at all that crap that happened with the toilet paper hoarding, no pun intended.”

I laugh, as he continues.

“It’s gonna happen again man. Everyone takes care of themselves.”

I sigh, “Yeah, but the only way forward is caring for each other.”

“We shall see.” 16/

My patient is finally arriving.

Enough introspection.

Time to put 9 years of training and 11 years of practice to use.

N95 on. Surgical mask over. Face shield. Gown. Gloves. Surgical cap. Shoe covers.

Armor up.

The transport team walks past.

Beep. Beep. Beep. 17/

Beep. Beep. Beep.

The register beeps as we check out.

I’m 7 years old.

My dad is taking me to a corner store. He picks up some bread and milk.

I stand before the candy aisle, mesmerized. He tells me I can have whatever I want.

I pick out just one.

And I hold his hand.