What Sarah Said

For quite a while now, Death Cab for Cutie have been my favourite band, and no other such band has been able to take that title away from them. Not only is it the beauty of the music, but also the depth and meaning to their lyrics. I have a great many memories associated with their music, not only some of the best but some of the worse.

When I lay in hospital one night, alone, scared, in pain and totally unable to sleep. I grabbed my iPod off the table beside my bed, and the first song that happened to play was What Sarah Said by Death Cab for Cutie. For those who do not know of this song, it is about someone in hospital visiting someone who is I suspect dying, and then recalling something a girl named Sarah had told them, “Love is watching someone die”. Because in the end, to be strong enough to smile at someone, to be there for them even though you know they are going to leave you, even if it is through no fault of there own, is a hard thing to do. To stand by a watch someone you love die, takes a great amount of strength.

However, it is the last line of the song, that plays during an instrumental section at the end, that brought me to tears on that hospital bed, that made me think of all those around me and what I stood to lose if I didn’t win this battle:

So who’s going to watch you die?

Because in the end who really loves you enough to be there, to stand by you right til the end.

And it came to me then
That every plan is a tiny prayer to Father Time
As I stared at my shoes in the ICU
That reeked of piss and 409
And I rationed my breaths as I said to myself
That I’d already taken too much today
As each descending peak on the LCD
Took you a little farther away from me
Away from me

Amongst the vending machines and year-old magazines
In a place where we only say goodbye
It stung like a violent wind that our memories depend
On a faulty camera in our minds
But I knew that you were a truth
I would rather lose than to have never lain beside at all
And I looked around at all the eyes on the ground
As the TV entertained itself

‘Cause there’s no comfort in the waiting room
Just nervous paces bracing for bad news
Then the nurse comes around and everyone lifts their head
But I’m thinking of what Sarah said
That love is watching someone die

So who’s going to watch you die
So who’s going to watch you die
So who’s going to watch you die

You can see the music video here (scroll down to the “What Sarah Said” video)

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A Note on my Header

My header image is something I produced a while back, and due to severe laziness on my part, I decided to reuse it here as a header.

The phrase “If three words could heal you, I would only speak two” are lyrics from Cherry Kiss by From Autumn to Ashes. Many of their songs have fantastic lyrics, but these particular lines have always resonated with me.

Whilst I make no pretence and analysing song lyrics regularly in much the similar way you are forced to in those long, tedious english literature lessons (can you tell I am a scientist at heart?), these lyrics do hold a stong meaning for me. It like having the power right then and there to cure someone, beginning to do so and holding back at the last minutes for a reason known only to you. To, in some ways, hold back that last word, just because you have the power to.

In life words have a great power that many people do not acknowledge, whether it be good or bad. People have killed themselves or others by being hurt or rejected by another, or thrown caution to the wind because someone whispered “I love you“. But also as doctors, those words can bring the gift of life or take it away. Just look in to the wishful eyes of a pateint who is about to be informed there is no longer any hope, if you wish to see the dramatic effect just a few words can have on a person entire perspective.

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An Old Lady’s Poem

When I started my volunteering a few years ago, as a medical applicant, we were given many talks on fire safety and the handling of patients. After these multiple and very dull presentations, one of the staff showed us a video she hoped we would remember for a long time to come, especially when we see the glassy eyes of elderly patients.

As part of my volunteering and work as a phlebotomist, I have had a lot of patient experience, and I am all to familiar with those elderly patients on the ward that no longer know who they are or why they are there, that the nurses no longer answer their calls and the reason their sheets are so messed are because they’ve soiled themself again. Sometimes its hard to look at these patients, these people, and realise they were once young like me, they had lives, familys and so many memories.

Sometimes, I see those silent patients look up at me with teary eyes set in a time withered expressionless face, and wonder do they know who they are any more? Do they remember their first taste of ice cream on a warm day, their first kiss or the hurt following a broken heart? Can they no longer speak or do they chose not to?

This video contained an elderly lady in a care home, who was ignored by the staff that treated her, with this following poem being voiced over. I had never known the origins of this poem, or really remembered how it went, only its intended message.

However, at work one day, I saw this same poem pinned up on the notice board. It had been written by an old lady in hospital in Scotland, but it was only discovered by nurses after her death amongst her belongings. This poem expresses perfectly how so many of those old people must feel, the ones that are still there behind their glassy eyes.

What do you see, nurses, what do you see?
What are you thinking when you’re looking at me?
A crabby old woman, not very wise,
Uncertain of habit, with faraway eyes?
Who dribbles her food and makes no reply
When you say in a loud voice, “I do wish you’d try!”

Who seems not to notice the things that you do,
And forever is missing a stocking or shoe…
Who, resisting or not, lets you do as you will,
With bathing and feeding, the long day to fill…
Is that what you’re thinking? Is that what you see?
Then open your eyes, nurse; you’re not looking at me.

I’ll tell you who I am as I sit here so still,
As I do at your bidding, as I eat at your will.
I’m a small child of ten … with a father and mother,
Brothers and sisters, who love one another.

A young girl of sixteen, with wings on her feet,
Dreaming that soon now a lover she’ll meet.
A bride soon at twenty — my heart gives a leap,
Remembering the vows that I promised to keep.
At twenty-five now, I have young of my own,
Who need me to guide and a secure happy home.
A woman of thirty, my young now grown fast,
Bound to each other with ties that should last.
At forty, my young sons have grown and are gone,
But my man’s beside me to see I don’t mourn.
At fifty once more, babies play round my knee,
Again we know children, my loved one and me.

Dark days are upon me, my husband is dead;
I look at the future, I shudder with dread.
For my young are all rearing young of their own,
And I think of the years and the love that I’ve known.
I’m now an old woman … and nature is cruel;
‘Tis jest to make old age look like a fool.
The body, it crumbles, grace and vigor depart,
There is now a stone where I once had a heart.
But inside this old carcass a young girl still dwells,
And now and again my battered heart swells.

I remember the joys, I remember the pain,
And I’m loving and living life over again.
I think of the years …. all too few, gone too fast,
And accept the stark fact that nothing can last.

So open your eyes, nurses, open and see,
Not a crabby old woman; look closer… see me.

Current weight: 9 st 4 (130 pounds)
Weight lost so far: 6 pounds
BMI: 25.4
Weight still to lose: 11 pounds by April

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Patient: The True Story of a Rare Illness by Ben Watt

Patient: The True Story of a Rare Illness book cover

Having recieved my diagnosis, I did a bit of Google search, as I’m sure any curious patient does. There isn’t a huge amount of reliable information on Churg Strauss Syndrome (CSS) and much of the information can conflicting at times.

I first turn to the ever sort-of reliable Wikipedia; first stop for all my knowledge needs. It was there I found out about a book by a musician called Ben Watt, who had been diagnosed with CSS at a relatively young age of 29, considering it “traditionally” affects people aged 40-50.

Having just started at university, I was able to find one lowly copy of the book down in the depths of the library, and according to the stamps in the front, having been the first person to retrieve it in quite some time.

It is in summary about Ben Watt’s experience with CSS right from diagnosis to eventual “cure”. His experience begins as presenting with chest pain and from there baffled doctors try and find the cause. For over two months he was in hospital, experiencing multiple operations to try and remove sections of dead bowel, which had been destroyed by his own immune system as part of CSS. He does infact, in the end, have quite a significant portion of small bowel removed which dramatically affects his diet.

On top of his recounting of his medical traumas and procedures, Watt also talks of the way it affected those around him; the often forgotten relatives who suffer along with their sick loved ones. Something that is all too clear to me, having seen the affects that illness – not always my own – has affected my family. He recounts memories of better days  and reminds  the reader that patients are people, not just walking examples of diseases seen in textbooks. Something, I feel a lot of medical staff, not just doctors, should be reminded of.

The book was both facinating and informative and I would highly recommend it not only to CSS sufferers but medical students as a whole. If you are genuinely trying to connect with your patients on a emotional level, then this book will give you a genuine insight into how they experience illness.

Current weight: 9 st 6 (132 pounds)
Weight lost so far: 4 pounds
BMI: 25.8
Weight still to lose: 13 pounds by April

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