Category Archives: medicine

Why I’m Not Going Home

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Friends, I’m sad.  I will not go home to Colorado next month.  The family went already last month; it was a glorious 15 hour road trip each way from Chicago, with 7 amazing days in the mountains, my favorite place on earth.  Because we had planned to be abroad that week, back in January we made plane reservations for a five day trip to my home state in August.  And now I will cancel.

Cancelling a trip home is a big deal for me.  But I cannot ignore the glaring imbalance of risk and benefit here.  It’s a personal, emotional decision, but not without reason. 

Trust

First, I agree that flying during this pandemic can be safe. It depends critically on everybody doing their part, namely masking up and staying on the ground if we feel sick or have a recent known exposure. I do not trust everybody to do their part. I don’t know who will lie on a symptom checklist or suppress a fever with medication in order to fly while ill. I don’t know who will pull their mask off right next to me for the duration of the flight. Sure, the airline can ban them from flying after we land, but I still have to sit next to them for three hours, wondering about their infection status, fuming at their apparent disregard for my safety and that of everybody on the plane.

Shock and Awe

Second, I have never seen a disease like this. The spectrum of illness spans from totally asymptomatic to 100 days in hospital, intubated and proned, on ECMO (heart-lung bypass) and dialysis, limb(s) amputated, before finally dying. Every organ system can be affected, including the brain. COVID patients in the ICU require sedation and paralytics to control agitation, psychosis and flailing. Some suffer catastrophic strokes. Upon discharge, if they survive, months of rehab still don’t guarantee any return to normal. It’s been only six months since the disease emerged; we have no idea what long term consequences or complications lie down the road for these patients, no matter what their illness course.

Statistically, my family and I have a low risk for complications and death if we are infected.  We are young and healthy.  Populationally, the old and infirm have the highest mortality risk.  This is also true for flu.  And, healthy young people die every day from COVID, just like they do during flu season.  And death is not the only horrible thing that happens to COVID patients.  Symptoms can last weeks to months, including cough, shortness of breath, profound fatigue, diarrhea, and mental slowness.  There is no way to predict 1) who will get infected or 2) what their disease course will be.  It could be anything, and there is no good or reliable way to affect the outcome.  You could be totally fine or suffer long and hard before dying.  And the mental and emotional tolls of suffering in isolation, for the patient as well as their loved ones, are the ultimate insult added to injury.

I have profound respect for this virus and this disease.

Regret

Third, it’s a five day vacation.  We were just there a month ago.  This is not essential travel.  My kids are my life.  If one or, God forbid both, of them got sick, or if my husband and/or I got sick and died, or if I infected my patients—if anyone, family or not, ended up suffering because I decided to take this trip—my soul could never rest.

In the end one question always helps me:  Of the worst case scenarios at the end of each path at this fork, which would I regret more?  I will be sad to not go home this time, yes.  But I don’t know how I could take the responsibility of getting someone infected because I wanted to take a five day vacation and made us all get on a plane in the middle of a wildly uncontrolled pandemic.  There is no question here.

The sadness is real, though.  And it’s not just about the trip. It’s about life turned upside down, everything we took for granted—our safety and security—threatened.  It’s about the immense uncertainty, the suffering all around us, the lashing out and fighting from stress and tension, the chaos.  How will we know what do to about school?  When will life be the f*ck normal again?

Clarity

All of that said, there is still a very bright side.

This is temporary.  Life will likely not ever go back to what it was, but it will feel normal again, someday.  It will take some years, all things considered.  In the meantime, we are fully in control of our mindset and response in this moment.

‘Mindfulness’ has become a trendy buzz word, almost cheapened such that I hate to even write or say it.  But the evidence is all but irrefutable for its benefits, especially in times like these.  The practice is essentially to be with what is, right now, including how you feel about it, with acceptance and nonjudgment.  So much easier said than done!  And yet, in truly mindful moments, peace and clarity ultimately descend (or transcend, I should say).  To look around at the chaos and suffering, and accept it as just the way things are, is the first step to managing it all.  Living fully in the present moment allows us to distinguish clearly what we can control from what we can’t.  We can claim and exercise agency over the former, and let go the latter, thereby suffering less and maximizing energy and resources to effect positive change for ourselves and others. 

To really free ourselves from the anxiety and uncertainty of the present moment, to know what to do today, while we attend to the now, we must paradoxically also cast ourselves into the future.  We must take the long, infinite view.  What really matters today?  What from today will really matter next year, and in five, ten, or fifty years?  Will the disruption of remote learning for my privileged kids this year really make a difference when they are my age?  Likely not.  Will missing essential nutrition and social contacts, and parents’ unemployment this year, for kids in marginalized communities, matter later?  Absolutely.  Many of us will be okay no matter what.  Many more of us will not.  The disparities we see today cast long shadows into the future, and we must attend to them in current policy and guideline decisions. 

We are all in this together, and what we each do affects everybody. This fact is inescapable. There will be more suffering and death, no matter what we do. Somehow we each must make our own peace with the risks, find freedom and joy, and exercise empathy and social responsibility, in the face of it all.

In this crisis we are called to be our best selves for one another.  That ultimately includes individual, short term sacrifices for the greater good.  I can give up my little vacation to help keep everybody healthy.  I wash my hands like I have OCD.  I keep my distance around people I don’t live with.  And I wear. my. mask.  I protect you, you protect me.  Let’s all do our part, shall we? 

Where Is the Light?

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covid fairy penguins melbourne

Photo by Tobias Baumgaertner, Fairy penguins near Melbourne, Australia

*deep breath*

I always wonder about you, dear reader.  Where does this post find you, since we last connected?  How are you?

It’s a good practice to check in with ourselves regularly.  These nine weeks of sheltering in place have exercised my patience, awareness, and identity, among other things.  What have they done for you?  How are you?

For a couple weeks now I have felt all but overwhelmed by darkness.  Infection and death rates have slowed, but they will continue to accumulate indefinitely.  I worry that we will become inured, calloused, to the human toll.  PPE is still in short supply at hospitals across the country. Thousands of my colleagues continue to risk both their physical as well as mental and emotional lives to care for gravely ill patients.  They leave their families and support networks to become the sole supports for patients alone in the hospital, whose own loved ones may not visit, even in the hour of death.

Mostly I have felt burdened by the fighting.  The shouting, protesting, mean memes, and ad hominem all around me, directed both by and at my friends and colleagues.  Important reflections and insights arose this week that helped me see clearly the internal origins of my distress.  I re-accepted and re-integrated these parts of myself.  I was able to laugh out loud, exclaiming, “How fascinating!”  I know I will necessarily repeat this discovery exercise ad nauseam, ad infinitum—such is life, karma says, also laughing.  But for now I feel lighter, unburdened, more at peace.

So I thought about role models for peace.  I feel so lucky to have so many.  But one in particular shone in my consciousness this week:  Dr. Vivek Murthy, our 19th Surgeon General.  He has published a book, Together, in which he “makes a case for loneliness as a public health concern: a root cause and contributor to many of the epidemics sweeping the world today from alcohol and drug addiction to violence to depression and anxiety. Loneliness, he argues, is affecting not only our health but also how our children experience school, how we perform in the workplace, and the sense of division and polarization in our society.”

I recently watched a live interview with him conducted by Dr. Lucy Kalanithi, widow of Dr. Paul Kalanithi, who wrote When Breath Becomes Air.  I listened with one earbud, watching in my peripheral vision, while hurrying around my kitchen, preparing chicken and assembling a salad, all before rushing to host a Zoom workout.  It struck me that in stark contrast to my frenetic energy at that moment, Dr. Murthy presented only calm and serenity.  He answered every question with love, joy, conviction, and equanimity.  I noticed and marveled.  Then I rushed around some more and got on with my evening tasks.

Looking back, I have felt this serene and loving presence every time he speaks.  He has a way of making everybody in the room comfortable, welcome, and included.  Even if he’s interacting only with a moderator, it feels like he’s speaking to me personally.  He sees me, he gets me.  He cares about me.  In searching for the Kalanithi interview, I came across this lecture and discussion he gave at Stanford University in 2015.  I hope you will take the time to watch (or at least listen).  Notice how he shares stories of his parents, his patients, and people he met during his national ‘listening tour’ at the beginning of his tenure as Surgeon General.  Hear how he sees and knows every one of these people in their whole humanity.  Abraham Verghese, physician, author of Cutting for Stone, and another hero of the profession, moderated the Q&A, and also named Dr. Murthy’s equanimity—his peacefulness.  Notice how Murthy validates questions asked by students and faculty alike.  Observe his humility, juxtaposed with a resolute, unwavering point of view.  Do you feel it?  Does he not inspire you to be a better person?

Dr. Murthy and his wife, Dr. Alice Chen, have written an open letter to us medical professionals, in the midst of this global pandemic.  Reading it, once again I feel seen, understood, and comforted.  I feel true belonging in a proud and humble tribe of professionals, committed to service.  They shine their light on all of us, so we may see the path before us more clearly and walk more confidently, knowing we’ got our peeps holding us up.  This, in turn, gives us the strength and love to hold up others along the way.

I see the light tonight.  It emanates from my fellow and sister humans, and it saves me.

For a little more light, check out this Jon S. Randal Peace Page post with the picture of the penguins.  In it you will read about gems like John Krazinski’s “Some Good News” YouTube series, and Chris LaCass, founder of Pandemic Kitchen, feeding New York City’s homeless.  You can also share your own stories of inspiration and light in the darkness.

Where is your light today?  How will you keep it in front, as we travel this long road together?

 

 

Trust and Safety in an Uncertain World

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IMG_2022

Suddenly I felt my heart pounding.  My palms got sweaty.  My jaw felt tense.  I’m anxious, I realized.  It felt like sometimes when I speak up in big meetings.  Wow, I don’t even have to be in front of people for this to happen, how fascinating.

It was the second or third comment I had written on another Facebook page, belonging to a high school classmate.  I think we became ‘friends’ through his wife, a friendly acquaintance of mine in high school, with whom I’ve been connected on Facebook for several years.  I don’t really know her husband at all, and yet here I was, writing long replies on his page about universal masking, why recommendations changed between March and now, and why I trust Dr. Fauci despite his apparent flip-flop on this issue.

I had entered someone else’s house, offering my unsolicited opinions.  Though we have a handful of mutual friends, I had no idea who else would attend this party, and whether I would be welcome.  I wasn’t sure it was safe.

And yet I felt compelled to enter, why?  Perhaps I felt defensive of my professional standard bearer, Dr. Fauci, the father of modern infectious disease and icon of science, medicine, and public health.  He has basically led the research to define and defeat HIV/AIDS since the 1980s.  Through six administrations, he has directed the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) to successfully manage H1N1, Ebola, and Zika, at home and abroad.  He is one of my heroes.  Likely, I also wanted to absolve myself a little, as I had also recommended against masking in public early on.  I wanted to help some strangers see us, the ‘experts’, as human and fallible, and also earnest and caring, worthy of heeding.

So I obsessed over my comments.  I read and reread before posting.  I edited after posting.  I included the links embedded above, inviting anyone on the thread to hear Dr. Fauci in his own words, in full.  I offered my own mea culpa twice, explaining how academics sometimes fall victim to ivory tower thinking, as we did in this case.  Perhaps this was my attempt at earning back whatever trust people may have lost because we experts contradicted ourselves in such an important and pivotal moment.  I regret this, and I wanted people to know, and then maybe not hold it against me (us).  Would I be crucified?  Or would I crack a door open to hearing what I had to say?  I feel anxious now, just thinking about it again.

My own friends discussed this on my page a few weeks ago, after my post on antibody testing (our recommendations have not changed yet).  Paul, MD PhD and rheumatologist, pointed out, “US experts really blew it initially when it came to masks… All they had to do was consider the possibility that Asian countries might be right and then consider that the risk associated with (masking) was virtually zero.  The first thing experts need to do, when confronted with circumstances that are truly new to them, is admit uncertainty and base recommendations accordingly.”  I’m so lucky to have such honest and direct friends.  I replied that I felt badly for following the ‘expert’ advice like a sheep (which is exactly how others on my acquaintance’s page described followers of universal masking, yikes).  “Lesson learned,” I wrote—but have I really learned it?  David, Paul’s and my classmate who now leads quality and hospitalist programs at his institution, replied, “It’s weird to be here with you (two) bashing experts, since the three of us are by any definition, experts.  But the value of experts is not that they’re always right, but that they have a) a better track record and b) the ability to self-correct.”  Yes, humility is key.

It all makes me wonder, how do we trust someone?  I have conversations every day with patients and non-medical friends and family, educating and advising, and they are appreciative; they trust me.  But we have already established mutually respectful, personal relationships.  What made me think I could go on this unfamiliar man’s social media page, interact with perfect strangers, and have them trust or accept anything I said, when they had already expressed reservations about, if not hostility toward, my ‘tribe’?  Was it my place?

The original post commented on universal masking and referenced Dr. Fauci not in a snarky, pejorative, or aggressive way.  If it had I would have scrolled right by.  Because it was a neutral presentation, I felt it could be safe to enter this house and offer my perspective.  Out of respect for the page owner and his friends, I did my best to present both humbly and objectively, to be informative but not condescending.  I really wanted to put my best online foot forward, to represent my tribe and my profession as well and as trustworthily (it’s a word!), as possible—to connect.  So far I have not been attacked, and a few readers have liked my comments.

In the end, as I have written before, I think it’s about how we show up to one another.  I wrote recently about tribal culture, and how through this crisis, individuals can help our own tribes thrive by modeling a more collaborative rather than competitive mindset, by amplifying our togetherness.  “Who do we want to be on the other side of this crisis?” I asked.  David Logan and colleagues go on in their work to discuss how tribes can effectively interact with other tribes, forming alliances and advancing even greater good together.  They posit that tribes draw closer when their respective members, especially designated leaders (representatives), connect.

We find ourselves now in an existential battle for our lives, literally.  Now is exactly the time to find common ground, step onto it, set up camp, and make decisions from there—to merge tribes.  A friend asked me today, “Who do you want to be now?”

I want to be a connector, I answered.  I will do my best not to contribute to division, polarization, alienation, disconnection, and suffering, through my words or actions.  I will not be perfect.  I will make mistakes.  I will continue to learn and apply.  I will strive to earn and maintain people’s trust.  And I will help make it safe for people to question and challenge, discuss and explore any point of view.  In the face of uncertainty, this is what I can offer.