Medical Depression

The underground parking garage is in front of the hospital entrance. First, a tunnel and then two escalators lead me up from the dark basement of our society to the large, open building with so much glass that it seems to radiate light. Big windows and a glass ceiling that are supposed to radiate life, hope, and prosperity. The pretense depresses me.

Healthcare is for everyone, and the Hippocratic Oath requires us to show solidarity with anyone who needs help. Like the old woman in a bathrobe smoking outside on her walker with an oxygen tank beside her. For someone who has just been rushed to the emergency room in an ambulance with sirens blaring, where a team of specialists has already been briefed and is ready with unlimited knowledge, technical capabilities, and drive to make this patient better. I see a nurse pushing a patient in a wheelchair to the elevator, accompanied by two police officers or security guards. A helicopter waits on the roof to quickly arrive at an emergency. There seems to be no limit to the care available to those who need it.

But all this isn’t for me. I’m tolerated, but not a player, at most a prop. The world turns, but I stand still, empty. Everyone passes me by, filling society, but I’m invisible, nothing. The light through the large windows fills the space but shines through me.

I waited hours, days, weeks for this appointment. I had hope at moments when I could properly articulate my complaints and pain in my mind. I was depressed on days when the energy was drained from my body and I felt tired and helpless. I spent hours pondering how best to express my pain, my hardship. I practiced in my mind not to let the doubts I carry as a sub-assertive, introverted, and shy person show up in the conversation with the doctor.

But I keep remembering the doctors who didn’t ask anything, just looked at the data, and then told me how I felt. Or the doctor who did ask me how I felt, but then ignored it, and at most remarked, “Yeah, I can imagine …” The questions focused on my mental stability or completely outside of what I’d experienced or what I’d said. Time and again, there was that skepticism that surfaced as I weighed every word I said. The probing questions where the doctor suspected a contradiction. A consultation that resembles a cross-examination.

I’m sitting in the hallway, waiting for the door to open and my name to be called. I think about the past few days and weeks. The times I’ve lain awake at night because of reflux, an irritated prostate, or a painful bladder. The times I’ve twisted my knee or hip, the constant pain in my ankles that creak with every movement. I think about that and wonder if the energy it takes to deal with the disappointment and despair of being brushed aside again is worth it. Against my better judgment, I hope a ray of light will shine on me and that I’ll be seen. That I’ll be seen as a human being who doesn’t ask for the impossible, whose words don’t need to be reinterpreted in the medical mill.

My name is called, and I stand up. My legs carry my empty body toward the man in the doctor’s coat. This hospital is his territory, his domain. I sit down in his office, and he frowns as he looks to the side at his computer screen. He doesn’t ask how I’m doing, simply lists the symptoms I mentioned last time. He only looks at me for confirmation: “Yes!?”. I understand that the results show something unusual, but that this doesn’t seem to be related to the symptoms. “People can have things like that,” I hear him say, “nothing to worry about.” Then he folds his hands and looks at me intently, irritated. His words are carefully chosen and seem to be echoes from a far distance. “End of possibilities …”, “in my field, this is where it ends …”, “back to the GP …”.

His sharp, measured words are meant to preempt any objection. He doesn’t see that I’m already drained and continues without interruption, clearly intended to deflect any discussion. Words like “somatically…”, “I’m not saying that…”, “clearly you have complaints…” are lost in the whirlpool of air swirling through my head. His posture is alert, tense, and betrays irritation. Anger, probably, because the results of the tests fall short of his expertise. That this system, this building that costs a fortune, with its knowledge and capabilities, is being hampered by this kind of meaningless data about my health. I’ve wasted his time, and that should be clear.

I leave with a brochure, a handshake, and “I wish you all the best.” In the large hall, with all its windows bathed in sunlight, I sit down for a moment. This world, the world of the people who come and go, is not my world. I’m empty; my tears aren’t flowing down my cheeks but trickling inside.