Day 7

You read a patient's medical history, social history, current difficulties (adversarial family, palliative choices, fatal illnesses, disabilities etc.) and everything is real. It is not a novel or a film. These are real people. Flesh, blood and bones. Then you talk to them. And it is even more real. The pain, suffering, and helplessness. The hope, love and kindness.

You see life as it fades and you see death as it comes. You see 'death' in the living and you see 'life' in the dying.

You witness just how much a person can say by saying nothing. You never realised how much their eyes could speak to you.

In a hospital, everything is real. There is no such thing as ennui. You are confronted by pulsing heartbeats, the raw pain of existing as a human being. Life holds you by the throat and stares you down.