She is only 51, but she looks much much older, in her 80s or 90s. She's frail, skin and bone, sunken eyes and hollow cheeks. She looks like she has one foot in the grave, or just climbed up from 6 feet under. Her fragile frame, gnarly claws, and unsteady gait, reminds me of the de-conditioned black-and-white survivors filed out of WWII concentration camps.
She speaks slowly, but her stares are still sharp and she glares at us for admitting her to the psych ward. She is angry, "I want to go home," she said. "Why am I here?" Her daughter shakes her head and tuts in agreement.
She was a GP not half a decade ago, her license was revoked after she suffered a stroke. The sense of gloom and doom were so great that she became suicidal since her loss. She's given up. She spent the next couple of years contemplating about it, managed to convinced everyone around her that is the way to go, even involving 2 GPs who are now being reviewed for their medical ethical decision. She has literally starved herself of food, of hope, and of life.
She was a medical student once, a breed very much familiar to me. I can imagine her being a perfectionist, particular and highly functional; could handle anything that is thrown her way, and deals with everything herself. Her meaning of life was robbed from her when she had the stroke, she can not tolerate functioning at any level less than the highest.
What really strikes me is that she had given up so quickly and easily. Because I am exactly like that.
No comments:
Post a Comment