Comments on: Cancer Chronicles: Recovery Room http://reesabrown.com/2010/08/11/cancer-chronicles-recovery-room/ the life and writerly times of Reesa Brown Mon, 21 May 2012 23:29:46 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.2 By: Mom http://reesabrown.com/2010/08/11/cancer-chronicles-recovery-room/#comment-1483 Mom Sat, 14 Aug 2010 13:44:56 +0000 http://reesabrown.com/?p=937#comment-1483 I love you my daughter. I am crying, sobbing and beating my chest at the injustice in this universe. My baby girl should not have experienced this horrible cancer. I am so angry! Your sobbing voice I heard from the shower the night before surgery echos in my head as I walk into my shower. Pictures of women holding their young daughters close to their chest breaks my heart and at the same time brings wonderful glorious memories of your childhood flooding through my mind. Your strength and courage and sensibility in life helps us all get through the pain we feel. It helps me keep my head held high and say F*** you Universe! I love you my daughter. I am crying, sobbing and beating my chest at the injustice in this universe. My baby girl should not have experienced this horrible cancer. I am so angry!

Your sobbing voice I heard from the shower the night before surgery echos in my head as I walk into my shower. Pictures of women holding their young daughters close to their chest breaks my heart and at the same time brings wonderful glorious memories of your childhood flooding through my mind.

Your strength and courage and sensibility in life helps us all get through the pain we feel. It helps me keep my head held high and say F*** you Universe!

]]> By: Mary Bass http://reesabrown.com/2010/08/11/cancer-chronicles-recovery-room/#comment-1478 Mary Bass Fri, 13 Aug 2010 00:51:31 +0000 http://reesabrown.com/?p=937#comment-1478 Reesa, you commented on two things that are so true: only someone who has gone through that kind of pain and that kind of asthma attack can understand. I've been through both. Only those of us who have been through that kind of pain and that kind of inability to breathe truly know what you went through and what it does to one. There is absolutely no way (by writer--you or writer--me) to describe either. No matter what words you use -- the screaming agony of the wishing-you-were-dead type of pain and the horrible suffocation of extra-labored lungs and still not enough air or no air getting in -- will ever be good enough. Some things just have to be experienced to be completely understood. Lynn, treating the wound or the ailment and not the patient happens 24/7 in every hospital and is never the right way to practice medicine. It completely ignores any human factor. As far as keeping an emotional distance is concerned, there should never be such a distance that would make it okay with anyone, including medical professionals, to stand by and watch and listen to someone suffer to a high degree and do nothing to reduce or obliterate that suffering. Questions of import. Why, in these days of high level technology is it "necessary" for anyone to ever be in severe pain? Why, in this time of heavy pharmacology is such humanity-destroying pain inflicted on anyone? Is it the result of being uncaring and unfeeling? Is it due to lack of planning, as in such as Reesa's and my recovery room experiences (mine being multiple) when pain meds and breathing help could be provided the moment someone awakens in the recovery room if these things cannot be implemented before that moment? And what about providing as much relief as possible in ways outside drug use until drugs can take effect -- cold packs or heat packs depending on which is warranted, for example, as well as massage and/or accupuncture and accupressure? Better post-surgical and other pain relief care, and system relief care, is definitely warranted and should be implemented NOW. Reesa, you commented on two things that are so true: only someone who has gone through that kind of pain and that kind of asthma attack can understand. I’ve been through both. Only those of us who have been through that kind of pain and that kind of inability to breathe truly know what you went through and what it does to one. There is absolutely no way (by writer–you or writer–me) to describe either. No matter what words you use — the screaming agony of the wishing-you-were-dead type of pain and the horrible suffocation of extra-labored lungs and still not enough air or no air getting in — will ever be good enough. Some things just have to be experienced to be completely understood.

Lynn, treating the wound or the ailment and not the patient happens 24/7 in every hospital and is never the right way to practice medicine. It completely ignores any human factor. As far as keeping an emotional distance is concerned, there should never be such a distance that would make it okay with anyone, including medical professionals, to stand by and watch and listen to someone suffer to a high degree and do nothing to reduce or obliterate that suffering.

Questions of import. Why, in these days of high level technology is it “necessary” for anyone to ever be in severe pain? Why, in this time of heavy pharmacology is such humanity-destroying pain inflicted on anyone? Is it the result of being uncaring and unfeeling? Is it due to lack of planning, as in such as Reesa’s and my recovery room experiences (mine being multiple) when pain meds and breathing help could be provided the moment someone awakens in the recovery room if these things cannot be implemented before that moment? And what about providing as much relief as possible in ways outside drug use until drugs can take effect — cold packs or heat packs depending on which is warranted, for example, as well as massage and/or accupuncture and accupressure? Better post-surgical and other pain relief care, and system relief care, is definitely warranted and should be implemented NOW.

]]> By: Lynn http://reesabrown.com/2010/08/11/cancer-chronicles-recovery-room/#comment-1472 Lynn Thu, 12 Aug 2010 03:45:26 +0000 http://reesabrown.com/?p=937#comment-1472 This reminds me of a medical docudrama that used to be on TLC, where an ER doctor removed a bullet from someone's thigh without a local. (I know this doesn't compare to the post-operative pain you felt.) The doctor's colleague was outside of the cubicle, and was heard saying to an ER nurse, 'This isn't a third world country!' among other comments. Afterwards they asked the attending doctor why she didn't use anesthesia. I remember the look in her eyes, her blank stare and dead-pan expression, and her non-answer 'I didn't think it was necessary, it was quick.' Total loss of empathy with the patient, due to whatever her prejudices were about the patient, the situation that led to the bullet wound (the guy was an innocent bystander, the police said), and becoming so jaded that she essentially was not caring for the patient - only the wound. The wound was the only concerned. She was reprimanded later. A former co-worker's girlfriend who was a former drug addict had a full peritoneal lavage in the ER with only a paralyzing drug - no anesthesia, due to the addiction. He said her personality changed after the experience, and she hadn't been the same since. It sounded like she was suffering from PTSD. (Maybe former drug use was a valid excuse to not use some types of drugs - but none?) I read your paragraph and thought about these cases...and what besides the need to keep an emotional distance keeps them on the downside of drug use during procedures. This reminds me of a medical docudrama that used to be on TLC, where an ER doctor removed a bullet from someone’s thigh without a local. (I know this doesn’t compare to the post-operative pain you felt.) The doctor’s colleague was outside of the cubicle, and was heard saying to an ER nurse, ‘This isn’t a third world country!’ among other comments. Afterwards they asked the attending doctor why she didn’t use anesthesia. I remember the look in her eyes, her blank stare and dead-pan expression, and her non-answer ‘I didn’t think it was necessary, it was quick.’ Total loss of empathy with the patient, due to whatever her prejudices were about the patient, the situation that led to the bullet wound (the guy was an innocent bystander, the police said), and becoming so jaded that she essentially was not caring for the patient - only the wound. The wound was the only concerned. She was reprimanded later.

A former co-worker’s girlfriend who was a former drug addict had a full peritoneal lavage in the ER with only a paralyzing drug - no anesthesia, due to the addiction. He said her personality changed after the experience, and she hadn’t been the same since. It sounded like she was suffering from PTSD. (Maybe former drug use was a valid excuse to not use some types of drugs - but none?)

I read your paragraph and thought about these cases…and what besides the need to keep an emotional distance keeps them on the downside of drug use during procedures.

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