Pain no physician can take away

After her second day in the 8th grade, my 13-year-old daughter, Gracie—a smart, outgoing, and nonconfrontational girl—came home in a terrible mood. She’d gone to the wrong restroom, been chastised for her attire, and threatened with detention, all in one day. When I complained about the way she was addressing me, she said I would just have to cut her some slack because she was having “a really bad day.”

My response, I’m certain, was not what she expected to hear.

“Let me tell you about a patient of mine, and what it means to have a really bad day.”

That morning, I had received a call from Sheila, who told me, through her tears, that her son, Jonathan, had been killed in a motorcycle accident the night before—just 2 days before he was to be married.

Ten years earlier, Sheila’s daughter died of cancer. Now she had lost 2 children. And, in the last year alone, Sheila had a heart attack and a fractured hip and knee, spent several months in a nursing home, and had been left with physical pain that wouldn’t go away.

“Gracie,” I asked, “how could you possibly compare your bad day with Sheila’s?” She stared at me, eyes wet with tears, and I knew I had gotten her attention.

Doctors are healers, trained to identify and cure disease and to comfort those with incurable illness. Yet some patients face devastating loss that we’re often unprepared to handle. I am not a minister or a rabbi. I had no medication that could take away Sheila’s emotional pain. The only thing I could offer was comfort.

I phoned Sheila that night and told her that her call to me had taught an impressionable teenager an invaluable lesson. She replied that while she will never get over the loss of her son, her faith in God and determination to live on are strengthened by the loving kindness of her family doctor.

Jeff Unger, MD
Chino, Calif
Editorial board, The Journal of Family Practice