She was 19, here for migraines. She was nervous, had never been to a neurologist before, and her mother was along for emotional support.
We talked a bit, went over some treatment options. Nothing too costly. She worked full-time as a waitress, trying to save money so she could start college soon. We settled on nortriptyline and naproxen, and I began writing out scripts.
As I scribbled, I blinked.
Suddenly the scripts were gone. Instead of paper, I was typing in an online refill for generic sumatriptan… which a minute ago was brand-name, and she couldn’t afford it.
She was still there, across my desk, but she’d changed, too. She wasn’t a waitress anymore. She was working full time as a nurse, was married, and had two daughters. I remembered her having moved away to go to college, then nursing school, then coming back here. I recalled her telling me she'd gotten engaged. I’d treated her migraines through both pregnancies.
The nortriptyline hadn’t helped, and now she was on Aimovig, a drug I hadn’t imagined when she first came to me. In the time between then and now, besides the times she lived out-of-state, I recalled trying a handful of different medications over the years.
During my blink she’d developed a few gray hairs, wrinkles, and pounds from the stresses of daily life, jobs, raising a family, and making ends meet. I’m sure mine are worse.
This is also part of medicine, just as it is in everyday life. Over our careers we see college students mature into adults with jobs and families. We see parents become grandparents. The middle-aged become elderly.
We see people we’ve grown to care about die of things we can’t fix.
Being a doctor reflects the changes we see in our own lives as we travel around the sun. Our patients become a sort of extended family. We aren’t directly involved with their daily events, but we catch up on them here and there, and they see the same changes in us.
The drawings my kids did are still on my office walls, but haven’t been updated in a long time. Picking them up from the after-school program has been replaced by picking them up from the airport.
My hair has gradually thinned over time and become grayer.
The glasses I’ve worn since I was 8 have become bifocals.
All in a blink.
