Fear

Sadness, loss, concern, desperation, determination, loss of hope, perseverance, courage and anger are all emotions I had prepared myself to see. But one emotion caught me by surprise. Fear. It seems so obvious to me now, but my lack of mental preparedness meant that I was caught completely off guard when I saw the face of one of the patients in our ward a few days ago. He suffers from a chronic lung disease and despite gasping for breath, oxygen was not sufficiently reaching his blood. He was straining every wasted muscle he had left, and sitting atop his fragile broken body was a face that knew that something horrible was happening. Wide eyes, fast heavy breathing, pale wrinkled face, sweating bullets clutching his sons hand with his left and his doctors with his right. His high pitched voice, speaking what he thought were his dying words, were barely audible but the message was loud and clear. “I am scared. Do something. Anything”. He survived.

Fear is something that I’ve been noticing more and more since that first encounter. A child was undergoing her first operation without general anesthetic. Putting myself in her shoes I imagined lying on a metal table in a cold room surrounded by faceless strangers covered in blue or green. Their surgical masks revealing only their beady eyes void of sympathy or emotion that knew me by number alone. Even if I yelled for my parents they wouldn’t hear me, and anyway fear had reduced my voice to a whisper.