Trapped

"I wouldn't be doing this if it weren't for my husband." My patient spoke plainly as her husband looked on. She had long been diagnosed with multiple myeloma, and suffered many complications, including several bouts of graft versus host disease: instead of her body rejecting the transplanted bone marrow, it had rejected her. She had been in the hospital for over a month, and for many days had stated her desire to return home.

Her husband was her biggest cheerleader, unceasingly telling her how strong she was, how much a fighter, that she would bounce right back to normality as soon as they got on top of this or that symptom. Many times she had done just that, but now she was tired.

All I could do was nod sympathetically.

Then the phone rang. Her husband answered, and I leaned over her bed a little more. "It's easy for your family to say they want you to keep fighting," I said, "because they don't have to live it. They're not the ones in your shoes." She nodded, and I felt the beginnings of a bond between us. But it took a distraction for me to feel comfortable affirming her feelings in front of her husband. And if I, the supposedly dispassionate outside observer, couldn't even validate the feelings to him, how could I possibly expect it of my patient?