All the images seem trite, and over-used. The way her face looked like an open bird beak, almost no lips, the skin white and papery. The way I studied her chest to make sure she was still breathing. The small spots of blood across her gown and in the tubes that ran to her nose, neck, and arms. That her body looked only slightly larger than a collection of toothpicks.
I kept wondering at what point the nurses and doctors became immune to these sights; to bodies worn so thin by pain and sickness they looked more like other objects (toothpicks, bird's beaks) than human beings.
I'm still not sure whether she ever realized I was there. The surgery ended just a couple of hours before, and she was still heavily dosed with morphine. Just before we left though, she did grab my hand, and look at me straight in the eyes. I was shocked because, though she had been trying to speak to us, she'd been staring off at a strange middle distance above her head until that moment. And again, I'm conscious of how overwrought this sounds, and seems, and feels. This is a story almost everyone has told, or will tell, at some point in their lives. The pain at seeing someone you know become less than even a shadow of themself. The pain of watching someone else's pain and weakness magnified by tubing and electronic beeps. This, however, was the first time this story has happened to me. And none of the other stories I've read and heard about it prepared me in the least. None of them softened the blow.
before & after
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