Chronic Pain: An Alarm that Won’t be Silenced.
Surgeon: One Who Mitigates Harm Through the Tip of a Knife
It’s not helping. Can we try something else?
Something hasn’t healed.
I’m her mother—I know it.
Something’s not right.
I agree. Something,
Something’s not right. But all this?
She has an incredibly high tolerance to pain
That’s how we know it’s real!
Maybe another MRI. Maybe the surgery.
How do you know?
How can you be so sure?
I’m not. I’m not sure.
And yes, this, whatever this is, “isn’t right.”
There was inflammation on the MRI
You said it!
Did I? Did I say that?
I might have. The T2 signal was high. Hydrogen, water, inflammation?
Sure.
Why am I so sure?
No one listens to us
Why would I want you to cut my daughter if this pain wasn’t real?
There it was. I’d missed it. Not the words but the signs. In how many kids?
You’re left-handed. I speak to the girl.
How did you know? Mom’s voice.
To her daughter. Those cut marks, on your right forearm.
She slides her sleeve over the scars.
I was just bored. Barely a whisper.
All these kids? All bored? Does boredom hurt so badly?
Mom’s eyes, saucer wide. She knows. She knew. She will know.
It’s not a “high tolerance to pain.” This girl is numb. She feels nothing.
She cuts to feel. To feel something.
An added scar amongst her dozens would add nothing.
My clinic stool rolls back and forth with my doubts. The damn stem leaking air. I’m sinking.
As a surgeon, what can I offer? Beyond the truth.
I sit tight on that stool with the wheels, but I’m stuck. Stuck as the waiting room fills.
The exam room is tiny.
Truth barely fits in such a small space. I turn to Mom.
Tell me again, when did your boyfriend move in?
Ron Turker started in the ’80s as a standup comic and medical student. Through a series of nonlinear events, he became a pediatric surgeon by day and an unrelenting writer by night. Thirty years of caring for kids at home and worldwide have shaped, sharpened, and ground his sensibilities into a resolute yet witty voice for healthcare change and equity here in the U.S.
He is the author of the award-winning satirical novel, “The Wandering Jew of St. Salacious.”
A love letter to Medicine written with a very sharp pen.
