This is part 2 of a 2 part series written by Dr. Garrett. Here is the link to Part 1 : https://www.blog.numose.com/physician/fresh-ink-1
In a prolonged end-of-life situation, a family may be expecting the news. A trauma case is never expected.
He was young, in his twenties, from South Central LA. I would never learn much about him, but I like to think he was a friend to many, a loving son and brother, a good dad. When I met him he had a gunshot wound above his right eye. He couldn’t speak or react, but maybe he heard us as the trauma team did everything we could to stabilize him. Even if we stabilized his vital signs, our team knew that he would be left devastated. I could see his brain matter coming out of his skull.
He was not dead, but he was going to be.
The social worker flagged me down from outside the trauma bay. “Someone has to go and update the family,” she said, “the lobby is packed with family and neighbors, and emotions are high.”
“What do they know?”
“That he was shot, but that’s it. I have the brother, sister-in-law, mother, and wife in the family room.”
Before I went in to speak with the family, I rehearsed what I was going to say. I had pronounced three people dead before, and informed their families. This was different. He was young and healthy. This was completely unexpected. They didn’t even know where he had been shot. I felt a familiar lump in my throat, worried that I wouldn’t be able to get the words out.
I let them know what had happened. That we were doing everything we could. That we did not expect him to recover. Immediately all four family members let out a cascade of grief and wails. I sat in silence as loss filled the room. While his mother and wife sobbed, his brother began to roll up the sleeve of his right arm, “No. Not again.”
On his arm was a tattoo of another young man, the ink fresh, the wounds healing. “Not my other brother, not this soon. He just had a baby, a baby girl, she can’t grow up without a dad.”
There was nothing for me to say.
I sheepishly asked the social worker with me if we had a box of tissues. She silently shook her head, Not the time, her face said. I sat with the grief of this family for another moment, repeated that we would do everything we could, and left.
Outside the room the social worker answered the question on my face, “There’s nothing more to say, they just have to let this out. Thank you for coming.”
I walked down the hallway outside to the ambulance bay, expecting to have to collect myself, again expecting tears that did not come. After a couple of minutes, I realized that it was not the time, and went back to work.
Since these two events I have told many people they have cancer; their family member was shot; their mother is sick and not going to make it; their father is dead. Every time I have not been able to cry after. For a while I was worried that I was not as empathetic as I had previously thought, that I had inadvertently lied in my medical school personal statement and on my residency interviews. There are times, however, when these stories come to mind. I will be cooking dinner, or driving to work, or lying in bed, and tears will come. My brain will take these stories off the shelf, dust them off, and give them another look, the passage of time highlighting the emotions I was guarded from during the moment. Like tattoos, they were painful to receive, but adrenaline left me with just fresh ink. Now, after they have healed and aged, I can look at them and be brought to a different time. I carry them with me, some more visible than others. Someday I’ll be an illustrated man.
Share your "Fresh Ink” story in the comments section below.
Subscribe to the blog by entering your email in the subscription box below. Don't rely on Facebook to get notifications for new posts. We only email when a new post is published. No spam. If you are reading this on your phone, just keep scrolling down to get to the Subscribe box.
Give us some love by sharing the blog. Forward the blog to people you think would like it. Post the blog on social media. Like and Follow our Facebook Page. Follow us on Twitter. Follow us on Instagram
Keep Scrolling down for Dr. Garrett’s
Alexander Garrett MD
Alex Garrett is a PGY-4 Emergency Medicine resident at the Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles. He is originally from Maine but moved to California for his education. He is a proud graduate of Stanford University, and he received his MD from the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. He is deeply interested in medical education and social emergency medicine