The Med Student's Case
-Tracey Owensby
Have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts.
~Charles Dickens
Twenty miles from the nearest house, no running water, abused by her father and brothers, they said, as if this explained the sight before me –- that smell of rotting flesh stays with me still. The grotesqueness so overwhelming that my eyes filled with tears. The very seat of this woman's power and femininity, her most sacred of organs, her womb, had betrayed her.
She looked like a grown up version of a cabbage patch doll with her tiny nose and mouth and chubby cheeks. A kerchief tied over her head like Aunt Jemima was the only reminder of her roots in this sterile, sunny, academic hospital room. Each day they came in to expose her, multiple times. They told her it was for her own good.
M.R. they said –- was she? Or was she like Nell, just overwhelmed by this world she had never seen, the world that had forgotten her. I wondered if they were really doing her any favors by showing her a brighter world she had never known? Was the patient-centered model serving her or does the paternalistic system hold her down? Her cervical cancer had to be treated! They told her it was for her own good.
Radiation continued each day, melting the tumor and healthy flesh alike. Eventually, they became aware that she could no longer get up to urinate. The acidic urine was burning her tender flesh, already damaged by radiation. But in an attempt to cure her cervical cancer, her urethra was obscured. The nurses told them a catheter could not be inserted. They decided there was another way. They told her it was for her own good.
I was the only one that scrubbed. As a med student, there aren't many chances to participate in a "case" and certainly not ones you do alone. This was all mine! It was marked EUA in the chart, "exam under anesthesia." This often means assessing the extent of disease in a pain-free way and perhaps temporizing some bleeding. They were clearly bestowing a privilege upon me, however simple the procedure might be.
They inserted needles, gassed her, prepped her, put her feet high in stirrups. Her multitude of folds were naked before me, yet she slept like an innocent child. Awash with emotions, I stood there. For a fleeting moment, I knew what they were doing was cruel and inhumane – and now I, a part of it. Quelling this instinct, I pressed on, searching for the urethra within her labial folds. Trying a couple false passages before finding the right canal, I pressed the Foley into place. As I pushed the plunger to fill the Foley bulb, I was awarded with jovial accolades and even a pat on the back. I was vindicated. Finally, I was accepted!
But I was with them. Rape had been the only form of intimacy she had ever known. She was dying of it. Were we any different?
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