needs: Hospital- the questions I wish doctors didn’t ask
By day 3 she had three doctors, in their own pecking order, asking the same questions and explaining the tests to come. As the results came in, the range of inquiry narrowed and they were getting to the end of possibilities. They were actually nearing the edge of their range. And by that afternoon, the middle doctor, confessed “We really don’t know what to do” and the questions shifted:
Who lives at home? Mum, Dad, my brother Dante and Preston our Beagle (and I wondered which was the wrong answer)
Is it happy at home? Yes, especially if we make pizza (was Pizza the reasons why we were there?)
Are they your biological parents? (And with that she doesn’t look at me, but she taps my hand with her signal. She’s done with this doctor and these questions. After a lifetime of doctors, my girl can see a dark silhouette. She knows these questions and who should be asking them.)
Do you or anyone you live with, have a mental health plan? (We are fucked if we do, a crazy family and fucked if we don’t, failing to get adequate support.)
These medications you are on, you get them from a doctor? (These medications! Prescribed by doctors, that she never wanted but always has!)
I drew the hard line, and ask for some time to rest. You can’t do much in hospital, they are pretty much running the shit show, but you can ask this, you can ask for rest.
Within hours, my girls’ treating team was changed and a different line of inquiry had her on the path to discharge.
means: questions that have to be asked by doctors
- Some of these questions need to be asked because they can help some kids.
- Some of these questions need to be asked because they unearth a thread to an answer.
- Some of these questions when asked by the right clinician, following the protocol around those questions, provide insight.
- Some of these questions are groping in the dark, laced with judgement, shattering agency within a system that while it helps, can obliterate a sense of kid, leaving only a sense of patient.
On days when we are scared, running low on coffee, sleep, kindness and good days, when we feel isolated, questions that critically examine our life, our care, our love, bite down hard. These questions are painful to hear and leave invisible scars …
I’m kind when I draw the hard line, but I draw it. I want her to know how to draw the hard line, if she needs to. Every time I draw the hard line, I hope another family doesn’t have to.
