Visiting

Through an incredible giftfromthegods type fluke, four of my outpatient clinic preceptors are on vacation this week, leaving holes in my schedule that even our incredible schedule populating program coordinator couldn't fill completely. What this means is that not only am I left with very few items on my "to-do right now" list, but also when an elderly patient I was on the phone with asked "couldn't you just come over?" I actually could.

For the people who know me and don't think of me as "shy," it might surprise you to learn that there are some things that indeed I am shy about. Visiting an old person in chronic pain at their apartment isn't exactly in my comfort zone. But much like cold calls to hospitals I've never seen and patients I've only met for 10 minutes, I'm trying to build a new comfort zone.

She lives in one of the many high-rises for older folks in the area, a drab construction with a surprisingly difficult to find front door. I managed to navigate the elevator conversation and complicated door-knocker situation. She steered her walker to the door to let me in, smiled to see me, and launched into a description of her current symptoms. She's feisty, but trapped in a cycle of chronic pain, with ever elusive solution. We talked for an hour, mostly restating the same problems differently. We made sure she had the right phone numbers to call for appointments and I cut some of her pills in half. In the end, we left with the same conclusions as the previous conversations we've had over the past two weeks. But if her resolve has moved only by inches, my ease of stepping across bounds I never saw before is growing by miles.

When I was a girl scout, I absolutely dreaded cookie drop off. Once the mountain was piled in our living room, it meant I had to call everyone I had sold cookies to, even my parents' co-workers, to tell them they were ready to be delivered. I can still feel the sense of cold foreboding that would fill my belly as my mother complacently handed me the phone. But these days my to-do list is increasingly filled by "call..." at first these were suggestions from others, but now I've found how easy it is to say "how about if I just call That One Clinic and find out what they think the plan is..." or whatever it may be. And it's not hard anymore.

For some people, it's over-stepping social bounds like touching others' naked bodies that really jar the ingrained sense of normal. For others it's asking deeply personal questions, talking about death or even just poop. We all have barriers in taking on this doctorish role. Today made me realize how much having assumed this new role has given me this space where pushing past my own fears is so much easier.