On Losing Your Soulmate

A med student's lesson

I have free subscriptions to various medical journals to keep current with what is happening in the dementia world. This past month there was an amazing essay by a medical student about his experience learning about disease. The piece was published here in one of the most prestigious medical journals in the world—the New England Journal of Medicine.

And boy, did it hit home. He talks about the inner conflict as a third year medical student wanting—no needing—to learn by witnessing folks that are very sick, often right on the cusp of dying. Showing up at the hospital hoping for someone to be in that situation, and grappling with the reality that in order “to do no harm, you first need to see some harm.”

He goes on to describe in full color the two week hospital course of an 80 year old with heart failure. Even with my nursing background it was hard to read all the technical and algorithmic maneuvers of trying to fix him that occurred in the hospital. This quote describes the patient as” his belly hung over his knees, and his shins hung over his ankles. His room smelled like death, probably from the chronic, weeping ulcers all over his legs.”

The man had stopped the water pill that kept the fluid from building up in his body as his heart—the pump—was unable to keep up.

By the time of discharge the med student had bonded with the guy and asked him, “Why did you stop taking the water pill?”

“My wife died of Alzheimer’s about 6 months ago,” he said. “That was a pretty horrible thing to watch. I guess after she passed, I just sort of stopped caring whether or not I lived.”

And that’s what it’s like when you lose your soulmate.

Maybe that question could’ve been asked a lot sooner.

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