Here I Stand (BWWM) (AMBW) [COMPLETED]

Chapter sixty-four: The weights we make and choose to carry

Isa's pov

I find there is a special curse for doctors, since the university days we are trained to suppress whatever emotion can influence our actions, and then once we graduate there's the cruel realisation that not only we need empathy for the job, but that at times the same emotions that are able to help understand and help our patients better, are the ones, whose knives touches our skin first.

Life survival lesson 3424: There are weight we are made to carry and weights we choose to carry, beware of the difference, child. For they will try and mask things, that are not your fault, as something that ought to weigh on you.

As doctors we are made to think to be able to understand and fight against many diseases and conditions and that's what we try our best to do, even when there's no certain cure or treatment we still pledge to do our very best, and at times that outmost best ends up in our patients dying.

When you're little we are thought that somethings are too complicated for our minds, when teenagers too emotional or passionate about stuff we think we know, but I found to be one of the most lethal deception ever the one where you find yourself handling patients, holding their hands, hoping they will get better, the treatment will work, they will survive the most cruel thing ever. The typical wish of most people that do become doctors, is in my opinion to save lives, help people, but in order to do so sometimes, the job requires us to lose ourselves in it, until we find the way home (or don't). Years after I still find it hard to come to terms with it.

That's why most of the time we focus on the treatment and their effects rather than the illness. The irony is the illness is the only thing we do know, how the patient is going to react, how long the treatment is going to last, the collateral effects the patient will experience, whether or not the patient is going to overcome the disease, they are all question marks.

That's why when they die, when they don't survive... It feels like a failure, it is a unbearable feeling of betrayal and delusion created for us to trust our capabilities more than we should.

Rewind

It had been two weeks, nothing but bad news, Rajiv's father was in the last stages of kidney failure, nobody in his family had tested compatible for a transplant, considering his age, and gravity of his state he couldn't keep on going with dialysis, the probability of him receiving a transplant was pretty much inexistent, it would require a dead donor patients, who had previously agreed to be a organ donor and compatible with Mr. Atarchya, not to mention that even that would been a high risk operation, as his state was degenerating fast.

Rajiv had taken the test and the results had come out saying that he was compatible, but there was no way his parents would accept a kidney from him, considering his sexual identity.
He held up for 8 days, which was a lot of time considering he was off dialysis, afterwards the amount of waste reached toxic levels, the first thing that had been shut down was his digestive system then the rest.

I saw Rajiv's eyes darkened, drunk of anger drunk of grief, his lips trembled as he was cold, there was no stopping it, his eyes constantly puffy, from crying way more than he could.

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"Mamma cos'ha lo zio?" (What's wrong with uncle?) Adaline asked after some days, "A lo zio, fa male il cuore" (His heart hurts), I replied, playing with her and Ezra.

The atmosphere in the house was tense, Rajiv would only come out, of his former room to eat, drink, or go to work. The kids missed him, I missed him, but it would have been selfish of him not to let him grieve. He had grown a beard, which I think not to suit him, and his eyes had changed colour, they now we're the colour of dying wood, rather than lively soil they were before.