A member of my immediate family sits in a hospital bed tonight. They have just had emergency surgery, and I am thankful to say that they have come out the other end without too many problems (touch wood). I think. But the last 24 hours have been stressful, to say the least. Frustrating. I am a doctor. This was a speciality I am more familiar with than lots of others. Yet, I was hundreds of miles away at the end of the phone. Being given bits and pieces of information over international phone lines. Couldn’t move…… CT scan……. 2.5 cm…….

I dont do well in situations where I am not in control. And this was one of those situations. I wanted to be there. I NEEDED to be there. To look at the CT scan myself. And draw my own conclusions from facts I know. Come up with my own plan of action. Yet, I couldnt do any of that. All I could do was sit by the phone, and keep my fingers crossed. Do what family members of patients all over the world do. Hope and pray.

Being a doctor, and treating a patient with a particular disease is so different from being a family member of that same patient with the same disease. And I am just learning how much more difficult it is to be the latter. I just cant imagine how difficult and how scary it must be right now, for those that are actually there at the bedside. I am really hoping and praying that this whole ordeal gets over soon, and they can come back home safely.