The Arctic ice is melting quickly. Slow moving dark waves creep ominously through large gaps between ice fragments in waters that used to be strictly contained by solid ice. Next year’s ice will be even more fragile due to the heat absorbed by the black water. How successful will humanity prove when starvation and water shortages are exacerbated by the catastrophic flooding and crop upheavals that could result? What if the gulfstream turns the British Isles to ice? Am I joining legions of insane predicting that the end is near? Or falling victim to a culture that awards undue credit to miserable pessimists?
“Our mission is not to see what lies dimly in the future but to do what lies clearly at hand.”
Annie found her way into my office today. I last saw her 2 years ago when she used her given name, “Fang” and spoke almost no English. She has long black hair, a girlish face and figure, and wears a spirited jacket over distressed jeans, polka dot socks and high heels. She could easily pass for 20 even though she’s 35. “I just want a check up. Nothing’s wrong,” she chirps. She has a thick Chinese accent but otherwiese surprisingly good English. “How’s Samuel?” I ask about her husband after admiring photos of her 18 month old son. She turns away from her i phone for the first time and faces the wall. “Not well,” she chokes out. “Terrible. He passed away. “ I gasped. I had never met her husband but had spoken to him several times. Years ago, he meticulously arranged care for his Japanese wife by phone. Then more recently he translated by phone for his younger Chinese wife. A successful Jewish American, he travelled for work and seemed to have an affinity for far eastern women and languages.
“What happened to him?”
“He had depression. He hurt himself.” Luckily, Annie was seeing a Chinese speaking counselor and was thankfully looking forward to things like her son’s education. Aside from trying to speak English with her son “since Samuel’s gone,” she seemed to be making good decisions. I had another patient waiting as I drew her blood and finished her review of systems: “…and do you ever feel unsafe?”
“Oh yes,” she understood very clearly. “That’s why I want to move. A man in my neighborhood helped me feel better after Samuel died but he’s not a good person. He knows where I live. He knows where my son goes to school. “ She had requested I test her for everything possible during her exam.
Later, a young French woman, Francoise, said she wanted to drive straight through crowded downtown Bellevue streets without moving her steering wheel to end her own life. She stopped herself because her 3 young children were sitting in the back. Her children save her life every day as they’re the only reason she’s gotten out of bed for the past 3 months. If only Samuel’s baby son had the same power to pull Samuel up. Samuel spent 5 months of his brief time with his son in his pajamas in bed.
The privilege of trying to assist my patients sure saves me. I had to put the NYT editorial page aside quickly to get to work and I didn’t think about melting ice once all day. Because I’m in family practice, I was able to diagnose Francoise’s bipolar type 2 with major depression during her baby’s vaccine appointment. It was gratifying to see Annie enjoying a cascade of photos of her beautiful little boy knowing that I”ll follow up with her next week to make sure she has no sexually transmitted diseases and that Eastside Domestic Violence is helping her escape an unsafe environment.
Samuel made a big mistake. But to avoid falling into his abyss, maybe we should stick to Hollywood gossip shows and Pets 101, focus on tasks at hand and try not to dwell on the overwhelming urgencies that Paul Krugman and Thomas Friedman convincingly present.
Or we could always create a utopian piece of fiction. Found a good movie set in a happy future: The Fourth Element. And someone made a book recomendation: Stroke of Insight where a left brain stroke helped a neuroscientist achieve the same goal: Less analysis and more imagination.
