notes from above ground

xxxii

Feeling pretty aimless these days. Wishing it would pass, as usual. Thinking about the next few weeks and how I don’t want to participate in them. Not wanting to do any of the things I’ve been assigned to do.

But it’s almost over. Time keeps moving. Each day is one day fewer. I can’t tell if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. It’s probably neither.

What will I do when the weird year ends and I can no longer use it as a scapegoat for all of my misery? I’ll be left with pure reality, and if I hate it, then I’ll know that I’m the problem.

Sometimes I get extraordinarily irritable. My eyebrows press down on my eyelids. My arteries constrict. I feel my blood pressure increasing. I can think of nothing besides “I hate this feeling, I hate medicine, I hate my life.” Everything feels tighter, like something’s going to snap.

If I were to tell someone all of this, they’d banish me into the world of psychiatry and not let me come back until I’m ship-shape. Nobody would be surprised, either. Pretty much everybody becomes a psych patient at some point during their career in medicine. I bet it happens to most of us during the weird year. There’s no way anyone could endure all this without losing a little bit of their minds. And if they do endure it, if they’re somehow able to cope with it all without becoming mentally ill, they’re crazier than me.

I shouldn’t need intensive therapy or medication to survive my education. And I don’t trust those things in the first place, having spent some time on the other side. So I keep things to myself. I can handle it.

The days are starting to feel like a limited resource. They’re starting to pass me by. It’s November now. There are only two months’ worth of days left. I used to wish for this feeling of impending expiration, but it doesn’t feel like it did in my imagination. Two months feels too long. I want it to be one month, one week, one day, one second.

As hollow as this year has felt at times, that feeling was always just an illusion. Each moment was full, even when it seemed like it was full of nothing. Sitting at the kitchen table staring out the window. Sitting on the couch staring at the front door. Standing in the bathroom staring at the mirror. There was something in each moment.

The year hasn’t gone by quickly, and no one can convince me that it has. Every moment has been as excruciatingly long as the last, amounting to what’s felt like the longest year of my life. I’ve been doing this, day in and day out, feeling every single moment, without much interruption, for 10 months. All the days feel the same. I give myself away to things I find ridiculous. I can’t imagine keeping this up past December.

We had an ultrasound workshop last week, taught by an ER doctor. He told us that we would all do ultrasounds on each other’s chests. Surely not my chest, I thought, because I couldn’t let anyone see under my shirt. It’s too vulnerable. I’d sooner die than let someone see my ribs and sternum and (god forbid) nipples. To let them not only see those things but slide a gooey ultrasound probe around on them would be out of the question.

I let everyone else scan their chests, keeping an eye on the clock, willing the minute hand to reach the 12 before my turn came. We smeared blue, sweet-smelling ultrasound gel on probes, stuck them on each other’s chests, and looked for hearts on the screen. We joked and laughed, everyone seeming to be okay with revealing their chests and hearts.

My turn came when the minute hand hit the 10. Someone asked me if I wanted to find my heart. I said no, thanks. The teacher came over and said there’s plenty of time left, don’t be shy. I said okay.

Everyone else had done it, and it’s just my chest, and making a big deal out of saying no would just make me seem even weirder, so I lay on the hospital bed and pulled my shirt up to my face, exposing my ribs and sternum and nipples. My classmate stuck me with the probe between my ribs, next to my nipple. I looked at the screen. My heart wasn’t there. She slid the probe around for a few minutes. My skin turned red where the probe had been. I looked at the clock, and the minute hand was at the 11, and we still hadn’t found my heart.

The doctor had a curious look on his face. He took the probe and pressed it into my chest, harder. He couldn’t find my heart either, no matter how hard he pressed or where he slid the probe. There was an unstated implication in the air that maybe there’s nothing inside my chest. I wondered if anyone would’ve been surprised. I think it would’ve come as a relief: Oh, that’s what’s wrong with me.

He decided to try a different angle. He jammed the probe under my xiphoid process, just below my ribcage, angling it toward where my heart should be. It hurt. He pressed harder, angling the probe deeper, digging under my ribs. My skin turned redder.

When my heart finally appeared on the screen, I didn’t feel relieved. The minute hand hit the 12, I wiped the ultrasound gel off my chest, and I pulled my shirt back down to cover up my chest. We left, my classmates buzzing with excitement at having learned a new skill. I looked at them and wondered if they saw me differently now. And then I decided not to care.