I met Ms. T on a busy day, the last patient on my rounds in the late afternoon. My feet were dragging, my spirits lagging, stomach hungry and patience short. I resigned myself to the infection control alert at the door. Earlier that day, a patient in the four-person room had tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 infection, and now Ms. T and her two remaining roommates were prisoners to infection control. I donned the stifling N95 mask, face shield and gown, immediately hot and irritable. On meeting Ms. T, I could see that, at 86 years old, she was sharp of mind but frail of body, weighing only 80 pounds, less than 1 pound for every year of her life. “How is your pain today, Ms. T?” I asked, hoping that it was better so I could finish up and head home, to cook dinner and do homework with my two young children. “Terrible!” she said. “That gabapentin makes my mouth so dry and my head too fuzzy. I told the nurse to take it away.” Frustration welled in me, as it sometimes does when patients don’t conform to my expectations and I am feeling depleted by a long day. “Why can’t she just get better?” I thought. She had been admitted almost 2 weeks ago and, although she could walk gingerly to the bathroom, her left-sided sciatica and hip arthritis were bad and she couldn’t go home.
Jocelyn Chase
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Division of Geriatric Medicine, University of British Columbia
NSTL
Cma-Canadian Medical Assoc
