Changing Vision

As I was driving from work yesterday, I passed a car driving in the opposite direction. The driver, I noticed, was stopped at an intersection with a passenger next to her. The driver’s left eye was covered with a bandage. The passenger had nothing obstructing her eyes.

*****

I stopped later at the grocery store to pick up a few things. Walking from my car to the store, I saw a tall, high-waisted man, suspenders traveling over his plump belly supporting his forest green pants, with a navy blue based plaid shirt and a black, mesh cap on his head. He walked out of the store, turned to his right to enter the parking lot. I saw, in the corner of my eye as I passed him, his arm suddenly flail in a ballistic way as he nearly lost his balance after knicking his toe on a bit of sidewalk jutting only an inch from the rest. Arms extended, he was reaching for anything to catch himself. Fortunately, he caught himself.

*****

In the grocery store, I retrieved a shopping cart and headed inside. Obstructing my path in the entry aisle was a man wearing a white sweatshirt, white baseball cap with long brown hair flowing from the back…and knitted, white cotton gloves, gently searching with his hands through the greeting cards.

*****

Everyday things begin to take on new significance when you’re in medicine. What immediately entered my mind as I saw the man trying to prevent his fall was the beginning of the recitation of his medical history.

“…66 year old man is here today with a complaint of ‘hip pain.’ He was brought to the ER after he fell in the parking lot of a grocery store. He reports that he fell on his left side and felt immediate hip pain. He denies any light headedness or dizziness, stating that he tripped on the sidewalk. Denies loss of consciousness. Has history of diabetes, high blood pressure, and arthritis. Smokes 1-2 pack/day of cigarettes…”

He was, in my mind, a potential patient. A bit unkempt. Typical dazed look on his face. Odd shaped body. Does not really know what medications he is taking, but takes them all every morning.

The lady driving, in my mind, was the patient who just left the clinic, who has been satiated for her eye trouble, but does not let anything change what she does. She listens to discharge instructions, but doesn’t follow them. She gets only 2 of the 4 medications filled that she was prescribed. She’s gonna continue smoking, even if her eye problems are a direct result of it. When you give her all these instructions and have reasonably soothed her pain, she seems to be gracious and willing to abide. But she doesn’t…and she’ll bitch to her friends and family that the doctor tried to fix it but it didn’t work.

The guy with the gloves brings home the fact that the patients from the psych ward are all around us. The ones who stopped taking their psych meds, leading to relapse of psychosis, leading to exposing himself to a school bus full of children as instructed by “Paul,” leading to his one month hospital stay, which leads to his stabilization, leading to his release from the hospital, back to his home, where he eventually stops taking his medications again, and the first sign is that he’s wearing lots of white and knitted white cotton gloves to cope with his obsessive-compulsive disorder in my grocery store. They’re all around.

Don’t get me wrong…I believe in the validity of mental health illnesses as just that—something that can be treated.

But…they’re all around.