I looked back at the page and realized it was wrong.
My name was spelled wrong. I had spelled my name wrong.
“Can I- umm, my handwriting is so bad… can I do it again?” I made up an excuse on the spot and hoped the tech didn’t notice the spelling. It wasn’t even like it was a small mistake- my name had never had a “z” in it. I could have signed my name different- pretended some scribbles was my signature or something else, but even if I did I couldn’t deny the truth- this was bad.
I don’t remember how many times I had to re-write it, but it wasn’t just once. We were simply doing the paperwork- signing in our names to be used on prescriptions, going through orientation, and getting ready for the job that was coming. We were going to be starting work as doctors in residency in just a few short days. All of us were nervous- though not saying it, of course. But I wasn’t just nervous, I was petrified.
It had been less than two weeks since I had gotten out of the hospital myself. When they say healing takes time… they never mention how painful it is. Most painful is to try to watch yourself heal. Especially when you know how impossible it actually is.
“All I need is possible…”
Doctor Strange tells the story of Dr. Steven Strange, a leading neurosurgeon who is at the top of his career when he gets in an awful car accident that ruins his hands. He is lucky to survive, but then he is faced with one of the hardest thing for people to recover from- a life that’s different than you planned. For him, it’s nerve damage in his hands that makes his career as a surgeon impossible. He goes through every research possibility, every potential surgery, every potential outlandish cure he can find, but ends up empty. His career as he knows it is over.
Thankfully, for Strange he runs into a new world entirely and is taught how to control mind and matter in a completely different way. But for many who face things like nerve damage and brain injuries, they don’t end up so lucky. They can end up searching the world looking for answers that bring them back to the one thing they want most- the way life was before. The hardest part, I think, for any patient with a chronic condition is to re-write their future. To see different possibilities then the ones they had imagined their whole life. To see worth in themselves when they are incapable of doing simple things they used to do easily.
The problem with a medical professional getting ill is we know exactly what’s possible. We know the percentages. We know the complications. We know what we hope for, and we know what we hope for is completely out of sync with reality. But what else can you do but keep hoping for more?
How do you find hope when you’ve reached the end of yours? And how do you find a new vision when yours has been crushed?
I don’t have a simple solution for what I did or what fixes all situations. First, I think it requires mourning for the things you have lost. But I think moving forward simply comes down to what you’re looking at. You have to stop looking at your pain, and concentrate on what you do have left. It’s how Strange found a way past his pain, and how I did as well.