I guess it is official….

She says:
“I am afraid you are going through PTSD….all the classic signs and I know you are very familiar with it.” I can detect the sympathy tone in her voice, a tone that doctors don’t usually have time for it….

Of course she knows I am very familiar with the condition. After all she referred few of her patients to me in past few years, in order for me to help them with the exact same diagnosis….

We joke about the desire that all MD have to label conditions and categorize them…a security blanket of some sort I guess and then we look at each other in silence, me and this sweet doctor of mine. In last 10 years we came a very long way. We both came to trust and respect each other, especially as two health care professionals that by definition believe in two opposite school of thoughts.

The first time I walked in her office, head high and proud and told her I am there because I have to have a family physician in order to live in this society…at least for some annual tests and all. She looked at my chart and said: “Oh you are a homeopathic doctor I see!”….we joked about that initial contact many times after that. She came to respect my knowledge and expertise in my field so much to refer patients to me – something that MD rarely admit even if they believe in! ….And I came to trust her open-mindedness so much to make her our family doctor in every sense of the word…She became my precious angels’ doctor!

Now we sit in the silence of her office. She specifically booked me at her lunch brake and I am uncomfortably aware that she is spending way too much of her well deserved lunch brake with me. The office is totally quiet. She talks about the options and I talk about my opinions….

I walk out the office. I can feel the fresh spring breeze on my face. I look around. It feels like everything is in slow motion in the world that I live in. That is the world that I live in for some time now. I notice the fresh green leaves on some of the bushes and I have to mentally remind myself that I like this fresh green and this time of the year….

The sound of children and their laughter come from the green field beside the parking lot. I turn and look at them and yet I can not see them….I walk toward my car and later I realized the drops of tears were running down my cheeks. I am in this world and yet I am not….I am still in that hospital room, looking at the monitor and hearing nothing but the alarming beep of low oxygen level and the labored breath of my angel…..

It sounds like a broken record to everyone that does not FEEL what I am talking about. It is after all my broken record. Well I actually NEVER talk about what I am going through. Almost no one knows. I look the same to everyone except to my better half. He knows. He does not need words to know the deep hell that his love of life goes through….he knows….

Life goes on…does it? I wonder sometimes…..