I've just been re-watching the scene in which Izzie cuts Denny's LVAD wire so she can document a precipitous decline and snag him that new heart. Operatic tears coursing down her cheeks, Izzie begs Denny to let her "save" him this way, because she'll be all alone without him. Hot sex scenes in on-call rooms (my doctor friends tell me the real rooms have mice and disgusting sheets--you'd as soon sleep in them as slit your throat) get more air time than medical treatments, but the show's got some great drama and a host of medical moments that saved lives; there was the woman who diagnosed her own breast cancer after a Gray's Anatomy episode (her doctor had said "that's just a clogged milk duct," and he was wrong, sisters, he was wrong.)
What went wrong in my medical world today almost rivals what went wrong in Izzie's decision-making. At nine this morning, I went in for my monthly Faslodex injections and felt lucky to get the nurse who gives unfailingly painless ones. I was lying on the table with a large needle inserted in my rear end when a knock came at the door. A physician, male, didn't wait for the nurse to speak, just opened the door--wide--so that I could see feet walking past in the hall, and the heads at the other end of those feet could see parts of me that nobody sees without a medical or seriously romantic reason. He left the door open, appeared either to be staring through me as if I were not there, or having a good stare. He said something about wanting to use the computer. He entered. He used the computer. He complained about his day. Why didn't I scream at the jerk? The sense that I'd better not disturb the nurse's steady hand--the expression on her face registered the shock we both felt--that needle still buried in my butt, and the necessity of waiting for it to be withdrawn, the wound bandaged, and the other needle inserted, the irritating reality that I had to remain absolutely still or injure myself, hindered me from leaping to my feet and clocking the guy.
Incredibly, he remained for the entire process of me getting my shots. I asked the nurse for his name; I asked whether he had a right to enter the room under the circumstances he did, and she assured me that he did not.
As an American living in Germany for over twenty years, I'm often stymied by German notions of privacy. Sometimes Germans seem to feel that any mention of private life is off limits. In medical settings, however, I've been handed lab results in hallways filled with other doctors and patients who get to hear all about how low my neutrophil count is or whether I need hemoglobin. My name is called in waiting rooms when I go for my blood tests. Today's incident seems in a class all by itself. A university hospital, known for its oncology department, a doctor whose internet ratings seem impeccable--what the hell was the man thinking? "Never assume they're thinking," said an old friend, and yeah, I guess I shouldn't.
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