No Action Required
A frustrated poem for the medically marvelous
The things we live with in a system that documents but does not address
A sudden loss
near darkness
collapsed into distortion
The world misfiles itself
left becomes echo
right becomes rumor
Depth peels away
You blink. . .
and the room inflates
swelling slightly out of place
No longer agreeing to stay fixed
soft tissue and light pressing outward
Nothing holds its shape
Chart notes:
- Visual disturbance reported
- Small bubble of fluid noted behind right eye
Visible,
(contained)
unexplained
No change in plan
Everything rounds at the edges,
as if it has been approved out of urgency
A fever dream with documentation
Chart notes:
- Patient reports distortion
- Patient displays no visible pain
- Patient appears calm
Calm enough to continue,
But it is all in your head
So you comply
(compartmentalize)
one body crossing thresholds
one body delayed
misaligned
d r a g g i n g the afterimage
You close one eye
to reduce error
still. . .
fish-eyed
Everything just out of view
like you nearly caught it rounding the corner
Chart notes:
- Symptoms present but not fully disruptive
- No intervention required
Words will not hold
letters d r i f t,
overlap
misread, miscounted
Your mind refracts,
instead of reflects
Uncorrected
But it is all in your head
It must be. . .
No one locates the cause,
so it relocates into language
Wait and see
Funny
Monitor for change
You continue,
because continuation is implied
Affect appropriate.
But you look fine
Of course you do,
That is what is recorded
Now everything lives at the margins
never central enough for action
People pass through twice
once as body,
once as residue
No one treats the second
Wait and see
No acute findings.
Although visible,
a small, untranslatable presence
Acknowledged,
Not urgent
They do not move past naming it
Rehearsed sympathy arrives
formatted
expires on contact
Support offered.
You cannot stabilize into one voice
one complies,
one alarms
both recorded as
anxiety
Continue,
You are handling it so well. . .
If it were me. . .
But, I am me.
And I am now distributed
across incompatible versions
Help
But do not make it singular,
do not make it legible
I am blind
I need help
Chart notes:
- Reported vision loss, right eye
- Etiology remains unclear
No answers
No intervention
Everyone is confounded,
but not compelled
Continue, as normal
Record this instead:
No.
- Vision loss ongoing
- Patient self-report consistent
- No additional external confirmation
This is not resilience
- Function maintained at cost
This is documented refusal
Final Note:
No further action required.
Author’s note: The 4-year anniversary of the time I very suddenly and inexplicably lost 90% of the vision in my right eye recently passed. From emergency rooms to specialist consultations, the answer was all the same. Let’s just wait and see. They sort of shrugged me off and told me to just keep doing things I normally do. Maybe it would come back, maybe not. I might need surgery. I might not. My sight was gone for ~6 months before (thankfully) it returned on its own. I still don’t really know what happened. This is the first time I’ve really processed any of that. And while this is about a (small) portion of my own medical trauma, it is sadly not a unique experience. So, this is for all of us going through it.
Thanks for being here.
Until next time,
j
This was wonderful. What a great way to process medical trauma. Glad you got your vision back.
oh WOW! now i feel like i somehow went through it....i think maybe we need more of this...and reading them might (should) become a mandatory part of medical school. so they can feel the other side of things.....