How To Hold Back Tears
Joey is twelve. No, wait, fifteen. His face is twelve. His neck, scarred from pepper spray, is a bitter eighteen. His abdomen, with a line from a stab wound, is a harsh twenty-five. I guess it averages out. Okay then, fifteen it is.
Joey is the third minor I see by myself today at a well-child checkup in Fremont; his parents are working. I’m starting to get the hang of it–medical history is quick, social history is long and involved. Tells me his grandmother had just passed away and his one-year old daughter–yes, daughter–was sick in the hospital with pneumonia. (I double-check his age, yes, he’s 15.)
Up until this point, most of the other teens I’ve seen have tried to play it cool, or curse a lot, or are in good moods. They like to think they’re adults, but I still talk to them like they’re teenagers. Not condescending, but just not… adult. But Joey’s just lost a family member. “I’m so sorry to hear that” is my automated response. Not that I don’t care enough for spontaneity. That’s just what I’ve found as the easiest, non-judgmental, non-assuming thing to say whenever someone says someone is dead or has died. That, and some silence. Respect for the dead.
I find out Joey’s sister has diabetes, and Joey has a cough. He smokes cigarettes. We discuss coughing and cigarettes, and the irony. I smile, he smiles. He uses marijuana infrequently. He doesn’t drink alcohol.
Joey is sexually active, with his “lady.” He doesn’t use condoms. He doesn’t like they way they feel. His lady uses birth control. His “ex-lady” and him had a daughter.
Joey gets quiet. He tells me his daughter, the one with pneumonia, died yesterday.
He starts to cry.
I want to, too.
I’m speechless. The automated reply doesn’t fit. Only silence will do. I glance back at his age; he’s lost a child. He’s a parent who’s lost his one-year old daughter. I feel sick in my skin. I apologize profusely, painting him with empathetic words, trying to remain calm while my eyes water briefly.
We talk a little bit about it after he grabs a tissue–she had had a pneumonia because his “ex-lady” didn’t know how to take care of a baby (he does, he raised his three younger brothers). His daughter had had the infection for two weeks, and went into the hospital after it was just too late. I’m still in this shocked state of disbelief. We talk some more, and I try to let him know that we can talk about this as much or as little as he wants, and that there are lots of people who can talk with him and help him, too. I tell him that I find talking about difficult things helps me sort through it all in my head.
The rest of the talk goes on its way; I fumble two or three times, awkwardly trying to figure out how to continue the exam respectfully. He was beaten up by his stepdad when he was 7; he educates me about the two different gangs he has been in. He tells me that they have the right to take his life at any time because he left them.
I talk with him more than I usually do with the other teens. I go into more depth about what he wants to do in a few years. I educate him about the heart and the lungs and the thyroid gland. I have some foolish wish that an extra 4 minutes talking about hyper and hypothyroidism and diarreha versus constipation will magically grab his interest in science and medicine and solve all his problems, heal all his pain. It makes me feel better more than it does him.
Joey is fifteen, but life-wise, he’s eighty. He deals with these catastrophes as best he can. As best any fifteen year-old can. He tries to be tough. I can’t help but wonder if he thinks that this is just his lot in life–how his life (or anyone’s, for that matter) is supposed to be–or if he really knows how much adversity and despair he’s already experienced.
I sigh. I think it’s the former.
Thank you for sharing that. Not sure I could do the work you’re doing … not and stay dry eyed, anyway.
I have a feeling the kids you see know that you care about them …
:’(
Wow, I can’t imagine losing a child NOW, nevermind if I were still a child myself….
that was a sad story… and i do hope u felt better after writing it down knowing there r many people who will read it. as u said it gets easier when u talk about it. and i have the same feeling like Kelly. though i dont have a kid, but i cant imagine loosing one, how can a kid deal with such thing? he might be wise, and might be “adult” in a way, but still a child. or maybe he was never a child… maybe just under 5…:(
Any chance you can kidnap this kid and have him start his life over with you?
After all, the poor guy has a lot of life left.
(Hey come on! This is blogging! We can dream, can’t we?)
Flea
nah – there’s no holding back the tears here… I became a foster parent specifically to see if I could help some of these children with children. There are just so many kids out there who feel they have no choices. And more children just fall into the same path. Several foster experiences and an adoption later, all I can do it hope it’s making a little difference and that someone else out there will realize they too might be able to help one kid out.
I commend you, RG. I don’t know how foster parents do it. Thanks for everyone’s comments.
Your compassion is astounding and really wonderful. It seems like a lot of doctors and whatnot simply get the facts they need and whistle on about their business. The idea that you not only cared but had a certain hope in your mind that you could help this kid out is really really lovely.
This reminds me of the time you helped me out when my mother passed… like my first week at college. Thanks for giving me that comfort. It’s good to know that you’re still giving comfort to those who need it.
You’re a doctor, so all you want to do is minimize pain, heal people, improve lives. Even this site probably helps people in ways which you may never know, and that was your intention all along. So what I’m about to say will probably sound cold, even cruel to someone like you.
I doubt if that baby would have had a good life, with a 15 year old mother who obviously doesn’t know how to raise children. Is life really that precious, that it is better to endure a shitty life then to avoid it by a merciful death?
I too, am enduring a shitty life caused by shitty parenting; and yes, in retrospect an early death would have been far better than my nightmare of a life. Now I’ve been brainwashed by society into believing I must continue at all costs, and for what? So I can have a shitty old age as well?
The reason one hears about the miraculous success stories of people overcoming extraordinarily abusive childhoods is because they are just that: a miracle. In other words, highly unusual. Do you want to believe so badly that these kids grow up thrilled to be alive?
My point in writing this is to say in a roundabout way not to be so horror stricken over this young father’s pain. While it’s no exageration to say I envy the dead, perhaps this young man does too, in his own way.
Pepper spray doesn’t leave scars, FYI.
It can happen, that this kid will trun his life around. I;m not talking a turn on a dime, or a miraculous success story. It’s just that I’ve seen it happen, slowly, gradually, as kids mature, gain insight from the horrors of the experiences they have had, slowly work themselves to a life that they can be proud of. If jail or a gang knife or a cocaine habit doesn’t get in the way. His being in your office is a sign that he’s starting to get it. Even a tiny bit of influence from you will keep the momentum going.
I didn’t see that coming at all.
How many times do you get hit in the gut before you just stop feeling anymore? Good lord, at 15 I was still enthralled with the Osmonds. My 16-year-old daughter gets excited over iTunes.
I can’t imagine having gone through that much in so little time.
He was a man before he ever had a chance to be a child.
Nice write-up. I like the story. The child needs attention. I think that’s the major problem. I see much of this stuff as asking for attention. He is getting himself into situations, and he doesn’t keep them to himself, he publicizes it to you for attention.
OMG, I can’t even imagine . . .My daughter is a mere fourteen years old.
Touching post. You’ll make a great doc.
Wow.
Excellent post. Based on my own experience, I want to share that having a life like that as a child doesn’t teach us that we can make choices. We simply get bumped from crisis to crisis and do end up believing that is what life is about. And many believe that’s the way life is for everyone. Until we grow up, some of us, and realize or learn that life is NOT supposed to be like that and doesn’t have to be. It’s a very hard road for kids like Joey.
I’m glad he’s got you for a doctor. :)
i suspect he won’t realize how tough he has it unless it gets better. and in my much less horrible experience, it only gets better if he takes all the school he can get his young old man’s hands on.
We did not like this story it’s too confusing.