01/02/2025
**The Patient Doctor Who Got a Taste**
I’ve been a doctor long enough to think I understand my patients. Their fears, their pain, their frustration—I get it. Or so I thought. But then I became the patient, and let’s just say, humility slapped me in the face like an overcooked steak thrown by an angry line cook.
It started with my shoulder. Frozen, stubborn, unyielding. A war wound from my misguided attempt to reclaim my former glory. I tried to push through, but pain laughed in my face. A steroid shot? Might as well have been holy water against a demon. The pain remained, and in my impatience, I signed up for an MRI, assuming it would be a quick, no-big-deal kind of thing.
Fifteen minutes, right? In and out.
Wrong. Try an hour.
The tech slid me into the tube, and at first, I played it cool. I’ve done 36-hour shifts, performed surgeries running on fumes andand caffeine—this was nothing. But then it hit me. The walls weren’t walls. They were closing in. My arm throbbed in protest, screaming louder than a kitchen meltdown during dinner rush. My mind? Betrayed me. I imagined getting stuck, the machine malfunctioning, my frozen shoulder snapping off like a chicken wing in a bad kitchen accident.
Thirty minutes in, I caved. Squeezed the panic button like a rookie chef gripping their first knife. “Just finishing this current view, Doc,” came the tech’s voice, calm, unbothered. Easy for him to say—he wasn’t the one suffocating in this mechanical coffin.
When they finally yanked me out, I got a ketorolac shot, and suddenly, life was worth living again. Pain-free and emboldened, I hopped back in, convinced this round would be smooth. Ten minutes later, my mind went off the rails. What if I sneezed and ruined the scan? What if the machine sucked me into a parallel universe where I was still waiting for this MRI to end?
To cope, I counted. Then the tech chimed in—“Nine more minutes, Doc.” Nine minutes? That’s 540 seconds. I decided I’d count to 600, just to be safe. By 400, I was cooked. Switched to prayers—Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be—like a desperate line cook begging for a miracle during a dinner rush. I don’t know how many times I recited them, but it worked.
When the ordeal finally ended, I stumbled out of that machine with a newfound respect for every single patient I’ve ever sent for an MRI.
To my patients: I get it now. I truly do. And to every doctor out there still clueless? You will learn. It’s only a matter of time.
Empathy: hard-earned.