The Moth - The Moth Radio Hour: What's Up, Doc?

Episode Date: November 21, 2023

Stories are medicine for the soul, but in this hour, stories of real medicine. Hospital residencies, doctor visits, and difficult diagnoses. This episode is hosted by Suzanne Rust. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by The Moth and Jay Allison of Atlantic Public Media Storytellers: While in prison, Michael Fischer takes advantage of his medical condition. Leanna House find a unique way to cope with her mastectomy. Oscar Saavedra takes a stab at being a phlebotomist. Cancer patient Gwen Carmen tries to learn how to die. After giving birth, Elizabeth Gray is in denial about her mental health.

From PRX, this is the Moth radio hour. I'm your host, Suzanne Rust. The vows in sickness and in health aren't just for weddings. Doctors and healthcare professionals honor them every day. Yes, they take care of our bodies, but when they go the extra mile, they can also help heal us in other ways. And sometimes heal themselves in the process. This episode celebrates the complexities of that special patient doctor dance.

Our first story is from Michael Fisher, who told it at a main stage in Champaign, Illinois, where we partnered with the Virginia Theatre. Here's Michael, live at the mom. About one week into my sentence, the guards put the whole prison on lockdown. I was in what's called reception, waiting to be classified, and then send to a different

prison to serve my two years. The rumor was that an inmate had convinced a civilian worker to smuggle in drugs and they'd shut everything down to look for the contraband. I still don't know if that's true, but we were on lockdown for weeks over something in ourselves all day, every day. No mess hall, no showers, no yard. Just guys yelling back and forth day and night. I was in this big cell block. It was four tears high on both sides that held 400 other men. But I was alone.

Every time the porter came by to drop a bag meal on the little shelf of my cell gate, I wanted to go for a handshake or a fist bump, anything, just to make contact with another person. But I was afraid the porter would just see some strange guy trying to grab him through the bars. About 10 days into lockdown, my cell buzzed open after morning count, and the tear officer sent me to medical. I was born with a heart problem. I've been having surgeries for it since I was a kid,

so apparently I had to see a cardiologist before the state could decide which prison to send me to next. That meant leaving the lockdown behind for a day, and going to a hospital in the free world. To see a doctor on the outside, I had to be strip searched and have my wrists and my ankle shackled. The handcuffs were connected to a chain around my waist, so I could only lift my hands

a couple inches. Think of it like the choke collars some people use on dogs. I wasn't used to ankle cuffs that early in my bid, and this was January into York, so I waddled through snow to the transport van with an officer on either side of me, and then sort of threw myself into the back seat because I couldn't use my hands. How boring you think the waiting room at your doctor's office is depends a lot on where you're arriving from. I was so excited to sit on a real chair instead of a steel bench.

To be in a quiet room that didn't smell like sweat or urine or disinfectant. When I shuffled through the front door of the doctor's office, one of the CEOs with me said, come on, we're not stopping. He led me down a hallway and I stood against a wall while the other officer checked me in. Pretty naive to think I'd be allowed to sit and wait with the other patients. They would be afraid of me. It occurred to me that this trip might not be the break I'd hope for.

I thought being in the free world for a day would be great. See mailboxes and billboards again, look at people in their cars and wonder about their lives. Pretend I was just on my way to work, like everybody else. I thought I would feel almost normal, not like some animal escaped from the zoo. The staff clearly wanted me out the door as fast as possible. So pretty quickly, the officers and I were showing into an exam room.

The cardiologist walked in with a nurse right behind him. And he looked at me and said, Michael, use my first name as if I were any other patient on his schedule. And I said, yeah, I'm Michael. The cardiologist started a physical exam and just the feeling of his stethoscope against my chest, I might as well have been at a spa. I started reciting my medical history

using all the technical terms I've learned from dealing with heart disease my whole life. And when I'd finished the nurse tapped my ankle cuffs twice with a finger and said, you're too smart for these, which was supposed to be a compliment. I wanted to tell her that's not how it works. The guys on my cell block weren't locked up for being stupid. But to be honest, a part of me felt flattered.

This nurse and this doctor were treating me like I was a real person. They thought I was smart. And they weren't afraid to look me in the eyes and lay their hands on me. After weeks of no human touch and no dignity to suddenly have people do things as simple as speak to me kindly or listen to my heartbeat or feel for swelling in my legs. I decided I would pay any price for that, just to feel the touch of another person for a minute. And to know that person's here to help me, and to hope that meant I still deserved help. From the moment the officer has put me back in the van, I had a new plan for my time in prison.

Take as many medical trips as possible. Even though it would mean waking up at 4 in the morning and the cuffs and chains for 12 hours straight and the looks from every person along the way, I needed that reward at the end. I needed contact with people who treated me as if I was still fully human, because I wasn't sure I even believed that anymore.

So I started lying. I was transferred from maximum security reception to a different prison, and almost as soon as I got there, I started complaining to the medical staff about symptoms I didn't actually have, but because my heart problem really is serious, everything I said was believable. So they started sending me out on more medical trips.

Sometimes more than once a month, I'd get to take these awesome long drives through the countryside into the city. Two officers and I would enter through a back door that was only used to take out the hospital's trash and bring inmates to appointments. It always took a while to reach the cardiology clinic because every time someone came walking towards me, the officers would have me turn to the wall and stare at my feet

until the person passed. But I still cut side of faces. I saw people pull their children close or dark down random hallways or pretend to forget something and just turn around. Still it was easier to mark time by my hospital trips than by what I was missing back home. My sister got engaged and then married, but I had things to do too. I had an appointment to go to CT scan. My grandma was dementia got worse until she forgot who I was. And it became hard for me to sleep through the night

while I'd having a panic attack. But at least my grandma couldn't remember to be ashamed of me anymore. At one time, the doctors gave me what they called twilight drugs, so they could put a scope down my throat. And that was almost as good as real sleep. My aunt died of pancreatic cancer, and because her funeral was out of state, I wasn't allowed to attend.

But what I could do was stare out the windows of the transport van and pretend I was someone else. I knew I was wasting people's time and the state's money and scaring everyone I saw each time I left the prison, but I didn't care. I needed the connection and I needed the escape. I remember lying fully conscious on an operating table, handcuffed to the side rails.

During yet another procedure that I'd talked my way into, what didn't really need, where the doctors were threading a scope up through an incision in my groin. And I remember thinking, this is so worth it. By the time my sentence was almost over, I'd taken more than a dozen medical trips. I should have been focused on my release, but I didn't want to think about life as a convict.

I definitely wanted to get out, but there's a difference between getting out and truly going home. I was afraid home had changed so much for me that it wouldn't feel like I belonged anymore. On my hospital trips, I could catch sight of freedom without having to really deal with freedom. But as my release date approached, I started to wonder what good the trips were doing me.

The van would be driving me to some appointment and I would think, what if from now on, I only know how to navigate the free world as a tourist, like I am now. What's going to happen when I actually live there? On one trip towards the end of my bid, the CO is parked a van by some dumpsters in the back, like always. But this particular doctor's office was special because here I was allowed to sit in the waiting room, off in a corner behind this big pillar. I didn't look at the other patients,

even though I really wanted to. That seemed like the one nice thing I could do in public, try not to bother people too much with the fact that, you know, I exist. The nurse who called my name was around my age at the time, early 20s. Once we were in the exam room, she asked the officers to take out my handcuffs to call my name was around my age at the time, early 20s. Once we were in the exam room, she asked the officers to take off my handcuffs

so I could remove my shirt. They took off the cuffs and I took off my shirt and the nurse explained that she was going to stick some leads to my chest so that she could run a test. So I lay back and close my eyes and when her hands touched me, I had to grip my teeth to keep myself from crying. And at different life, she could have been a friend of mine. But there in that

room, I kept wondering if she was afraid of me. She tried to run the test, but she wasn't getting a clean signal. So she started pulling off the sticky lead pads to rearrange them, and each one was pulling out a little patch of my chest hair. I remember she winced as she pulled off the last lead, and she said, I'm sorry about this. She apologized to me, and that broke the spell. Suddenly I felt so embarrassed that I brought myself and these two big officers into this nurse's space Just so I could what?

Deny reality feel better about myself for ten minutes She was just trying to do her job and it was not her job to somehow make me fully human again It was my job to know that I'd never stop being fully human, that I still deserve connection and compassion, whether anyone in any courtroom or waiting room agreed or not. Because the alternative was to keep feeling ashamed and to keep thinking of myself as a loser and to go through life begging other people,

like this nurse, to prove me wrong, to give me some small sign that maybe I'm not so bad after all. That was my last medical trip. I told the prison doctor I was feeling just fine after that. And then a few months later I packed my stuff, signed my release papers, and they let me go. Living in the free world again has been about as hard as I expected, but despite that I have to find my way as a citizen of the free world, not just as a tourist,

because if I can't, I'll never belong anywhere. Thank you. That was Michael Fisher. After prison, Michael moved to Chicago and earned his bachelor's degree and two master's degrees. Michael is a Lumenart's cultural foundation fellow whose nonfiction writing has been nominated for a push card prize. His work has been published in the New York Times, Salon, The Rumpus, and elsewhere.

He is a proud uncle of two nieces and two nephews. I asked Michael if he had any words for his younger self. He said, I would tell him that all the work he was doing, both inside and out, was truly going to add up to something, even though it was difficult to imagine at the time To see some photos of Michael go to the moth.org If laughter is the best medicine our next teller should have a healthy life ahead of her Our next teller should have a healthy life ahead of her. Leana House told this at a story slam in Boston

when we partnered with WBUR and PRX. Here's Leana. Applause. So the best thing I bought before my mastectomy was Google Eyes. I got this idea because I was trying to explain Internet rule number 34 to my Gen X sister. Some people know what that is. It's if there is porn of it or if it exists there is porn of it. And I Google masectomy porn

because I'm gonna have a masectomy in a month. So I Google that. Don't do that. Don't Google this. But the first result that wasn't porn is a YouTube video by an actress that has breast cancer. And the video is five weird reasons why I love my mastectomy. Now, she's hilarious, so it's not surgery saved my life, or you can't have breast cancer if you have no breasts. No, it's Facebook can't censor your topless photos because no nipples, right?

Or you can turn your boob into a night light, you really can't. So one of her reasons was you can turn your boob into a muppet with the application of Google Eyes. with the application of Google EIs. So I think about who can I make the most uncomfortable by doing this? So my first post-op appointment with my new plastic surgeon, I go in, and we're talking about opioids, we're talking about pain. And he's like, hey, can I check out your surgical scar?

Yes, you can. And he's a professional. Keep this in mind. He's like really good at maintaining eye contact because he does a lot of breast surgery. So I'm unbuttoning my shirt and I can see in his eyes when he catches a glimpse out of his peripheral vision. Because I have my boob that did not have a mastectomy, has a nipple nose and a big highlighter

smile, it's bright pink. And the other boob, it's like a crooked diagonal scar and it has, you know, it's an incision, so it has surgical tape, it does not look happy. The boob, it's the bad boob though, so of course it's not happy. So he looks at me and he's like, what is this? I'm like, I have a happy boob and I have a sad boob. He's like, why is your boob sad?

I'm like, you're gonna stab her with a huge needle. He is unflappable, he is a professional. So he just like gets onto the stabbing. And as he's putting the needle in, I ask him, is that harder when my boob is looking at you? And I crack myself up, he had to tell me to stop, because he had to do a procedure. So after that, I tell him, you know, we haven't done any progress picks. I had told him that I want to be the pictures that he shows for the best possible outcome for a mastectomy and reconstruction.

And he looks at me like I'm a crazy person. And he says, these go in your medical record. I'm like, yeah, no, I know. And he's like, a lot of people see your medical record. Like all of your doctors, you see a lot of doctors. Every appointment that you go to, they're gonna see these pictures. I'm like, I think a lot of people should see this, don't you?

So, in my medical record, there is a picture of my Guglaeide boobs with one happy boob and one sad boob. The nurse loved it. She actually got me a marker to make sure that smile was darker. So I wanted pictures because it's hilarious, right? I mean, what's funnier than a mastectomy boob with Gugliais? Nothing. Nothing is funnier.

But also, I know a lot of people who think that because cancer is ugly, that makes us ugly. I know women who will not take pictures when they are bald from chemo. I know a woman who her husband has not seen her without a wig. I know women who can't look in the mirror because they're ugly. And I didn't want to do that. I didn't want to censor this because I have a scar because something horrible happened to me and I healed from it. It's a miracle. It's a miracle that we heal from things like this. So my body is beautiful because it's the one that I live in and it's the one that

allows me to experience all of the wonderful and terrible things that go along with living in this world. And if you cannot make your scars beautiful, invest in Google Eyes and make them hilarious because that's the next best thing. The Anna House works at the same Boston hospital that treated her cancer, and she says she's not leaving until she makes back every penny that her cancer care cost. As you probably noticed, humor is Leanna's best coping mechanism. I asked her about her thing for Google Eyes. She said that for years, she'd leave a few Google Eyes around whenever she visited the

Cancer Center so that there were some silly surprise faces to keep the patient's company. The pandemic slowed her down, but she has a pair of gigantic, googly eyes that she's still searching for just the right place to drop off. In a moment, a phlebotomist's origin story and a new mother on the edge, that's coming up next for you on the Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and presented by PRX. This is the Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Suzanne Rust. Starting a new job is never easy, especially one that involves what you might call a very particular set of skills.

Our next story was told by Oscar Svédra at a Washington DC Grand Slam where we partner with WAMU. Here's Oscar. APPLAUSE Woo! Can't wait to make some noise. Woo! APPLAUSE Ah, yeah, we in DC. All right, so coming up as a young adult,

I did not know what I wanted to do with my life. I didn't know what career I wanted to pursue. 18 years old, don't know what to do. I hear somebody talking about phlebotomy. So I look into it, I tell my mom, nobody really knew what it was. So for those of you who don't know, a phlebotomist is the first in that drawer. I was blood, right? So I take the course, I pass, I lay in my first job, I'm excited, and I bombed.

I was terrible. I could not draw blood to save my life. So I'm going through it, and it got to the point where my co-workers, they would just sit me at the front and be like, just say hi to the patients and then say bye to the patients. Like I felt like a Walmart greeter. So I'm like, no, I'm never gonna get good sitting here. So they let me stick somebody, I go in the room, I prep, and I felt so confident, great veins.

I'm like, all right, I'm gonna get it. I miss, completely missed. But this guy, he got so upset. He was really nasty, he was rude. He gets up and he tells me, he looks me in the eyes and he says, you clearly don't know how to do your job. And I'm looking, I'm thinking like, maybe he's just saying this in a joking way.

But he was really upset. He's like, get someone who knows what they're doing. He says, you're not good at this. But he was really mean, really nasty. And I'm like, I like, it kind of hurt. So I was broken. I'm like, how can somebody just tell me this? So, I mean, they got to the point of all seriousness I thought about quitting. Like, I said, I'm not gonna make it. So, I called my mom, I tell her, hey, look, this happened. She's like, don't worry about it.

I mean, why are you going through all that? Just you, that could get your job. But the construction site. I'm like, hey, look, this happened. She's like, don't worry about it. I mean, why are you going through all that? Just you, that could get your job. But the construction site, I'm like, everybody does that. All Mexicans work construction. I said, no. So I took matters into my own hands. I asked the senior filibautomist, can you please show me everything you know?

Take me under your wing. Please, give me some tips, some pointers. And she did. And I got good, but I was always uncertain, and I'm ever really gonna be good at this. So fast forward six years later, after all this training, all this experience, I'm working at this hospital and Baltimore.

I feel like I'm one of the best for the bottom is there. I get a call, they say, hey, we need you to go up to the ICU unit, there's a patient in distress. And I'm sitting here like, we don't go to those units. Those are prohibited. And they're like, no, the doctor can't get the blood.

The nurse can't get the blood. This patient really needs it. We need you. So I'm like, all right, no pressure. I go up there. I've never been on this unit. I'm lost, but I find the room. I go in, and it was just like I'm seeing out of a movie.

It's like all these respiratory therapists, these doctors, all these nurses. This patient is really like losing it. So I got nervous. I felt like invisible. I felt like I didn't belong here. And every time I would miss somebody, I would think about that guy who looked me in the eyes and told me like, you're not good at your job. And I'm just thinking like, what I miss and everything just goes silent.

I don't know how many of you working at healthcare profession, but it gets real. And everything just silence all I could hear was my heartbeat. Just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And it's kind of like when a roller coaster reaches its peak and it's about to drop. And then all of a sudden, boom, adrenaline kicks in. I said, hey, I'm the philbotomist, I'm here to get some blood work, I need to access to the patient's arm. And they're looking at me like, who are you?

And I'm like, I just told you, I'm the philbotomist, I'm here to get some blood work. I need to access to the patient's arm. They're like, oh yeah, yeah. So I go in, I tie the tornick and I'm looking up here, I'm looking down here, the back of the hand, I can't find anything. I stuck this patient in the most unorthodox place. I'm not going to tell you how to wear because I know somebody I scared in needles. But I got it. So I stick the patient and I start getting a nice blood flow. Boom, one, two, boom, two, two, boom, three, two, done. And less than 60 seconds, I did it when nobody in that room

could do. Got this patient's blood work. Woo! Woo! Thank you. However, when some done, they're thanking me, they cheering me on, kind of like, yeah, you know? But I realized, I didn't even see who I just drew blood from like I went straight to the arm

I didn't even make eye contact or nothing They're willing this person away and I look at the patient and he looked familiar And I'm like why does he look so familiar and I'm saying then I'm thinking I'm like This is the guy the same guy From six years ago who told me I wasn't good at my job. I couldn't believe it. The next day I go to work, they called me. I'm guessing, well, he obviously, the surgery went well because they asked for me specifically to come back and draw a little bit more of blood work. I go up there and I remember that when he told me

that I wasn't any good, I told him, like, sir, I'm new and he's like, I know. I was like, well, I'm sorry, but this time, with more experience six years later, he's the patient that's in the room. I go in there, we chat a little bit, he didn't recognize me, but I recognized him. So I get his blood work, and then as I'm getting ready to leave, I didn't say anything. He says, hey, thank you. And he says, we need more people like you who are good at their

job. And like, look at him, and I turn around, and I look him in the eyes and I said, I know. Thank you. That was Oscar Cévedra. He was a flabotomist for over a decade and is currently studying to be a nurse. and is currently studying to be a nurse. I had to ask Oscar about which unorthodox place he drew blood from that patient. He told me that he took it from an area in between the knuckle of the middle and index finger. He says that not many people know or dare to go into that tiny vein that is barely visible. It's a move for a very seasoned phlebotomist.

To see a photo of Oscar on the job, go to themoth.org. Our next story was told by Gwen Carmen at a slam in San Francisco, where we partner with KALW and KQED. Here's Gwen. In 1986, I was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer. And at the time, I was working in the middle school from hell in San Francisco. And my students, like, they would come in the room.

I knew I was working with the at-risk students, but I didn't know. I grew up to school in the 50s. So if we did something wrong, we would get, it would get to our parents before we got home. So I'm not used to teach a student come up to me and saying, you bitch, you fat fuck it bitch, you bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch,

bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch and said, and he said, you know, you have six months to live. And I, instead of, I didn't process it because it was

an eight-hour surgery. And I'm up here trying to high-five him and saying, yeah, I don't have to know that shitty middle school anymore. Yeah! And I'm trying to high-five him. And he's got his, he's got his sense behind his back looking all around. And it doesn't, I don't get it until a few weeks later. So anyway, well, here I am.

And suddenly, I process, I'm going to die. So I get upset. The nurse is saying, you need to get up and walk around the room. So I have one nasty nurse says, no, patient refuses to get out of the bed. I'm going, how dare you talk to me like that? I am dying. I have a right to lay in the bed, but there's a reason you have to get out of the bed because bed soars one and it helps with your circulation.

So she was just really nasty. She was like cutting dry. She wasn't all sympathetic like the other nurses. Anyway, one of the things, why I was upset about dying, I don't know how to die. How do you do this? So I started crying. And one of my, the women I work with, called me up and said, she's one of these old school Christians.

She gets, she said, stop that crying. You know, Jesus Christ is your Lord. And when it's time for you to go, it's time for you to go. And say to yourself, there's no such thing as cancer. So with that, I said, OK. so I said, I have to deal with that. So anyway, right after I hung up with her, this was us, we had a rare thunderstorm. So that, that was an omen right there. So anyway, I get out of the hospital two weeks later, oh, by the way, they did a whip-up. I was lucky because they had invented this thing

that helped with pain-created cancer. But one of the things that I had to deal with also was going through chemotherapy and radiation. They put me on six weeks of chemotherapy and radiation. So then what helped me get through this whole thing was reading it lives Elizabeth Kubla Ross, the stages of dying because I didn't know how to die. So I said I'll go live or figure out how to die. And hers is all the rest of those books are like woo woo woo. But hers was really direct, real

people's stories, and it helped me get through, that's why I'm standing here today, it helped me get through the crisis, and also having a positive attitude. And I would like to end this by saying, I got, what's lucky enough to have health, I got health insurance through that job, and I had the best damn doctors,

and everybody in America should have health insurance. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That was Gwen Carmen, a San Francisco-based writer, activist, and former educator. She says that she has writer's block

to thank for pushing her into the storytelling world. I asked her if she had any words of wisdom for people who are dealing with illness. And she said, stay away from sad people and they're pity. It's not what you need right now. And don't just focus on the crisis, find something that brings you joy. Gwen wanted to thank Dr. Dean Ryder and Dr. Ian Silverberg

at San Francisco's Davies Hospital for their great attitudes and for keeping her alive. In a moment, a story about learning to accept help, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and presented by PRX. You're listening to the Moth Radio Hour from PRX. You're listening to the Moth radio hour from PRX. I'm Suzanne Rust. In this episode, we're focusing on medical stories. Seeking help when you need it is an act of courage and self-preservation. Our next story comes from Elizabeth Gray,

who told it at a slam in Melbourne, where we partner with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, ABCRN. Here's Elizabeth. When my son was, oh, youngest son was six months old, I took him to his child maternal health checkup. And so we're doing really well. He was known meeting his development of targets,

and I'm not the immunization is there up to date. So we're ticking all the boxes. And at the last minute, our lovely nurse pulls out a yellow double-sided form. And she says, oh, this is just a questionnaire to see if you might be showing some signs of postnatal depression. And I was like, yep, sure, no worries, cool.

So after about 20 questions and she tellies everything up and she says, she looks at me and she says, well, it appears that you're borderline and I'm immediately burst into tears. So she referred me to a councillor at the local community health centre. And my councillor worked out pretty quickly that I was in denial

and I really was resistant to going to a group session and really, really resistant to going on medication. So she sort of went for this sort of softly, softly approach and she said, look, I think if you can get some sleep, then you'll feel a hell lot better. So of course this was true. But what happened was I clung to this idea that if I can just get some sleep then I won't be crazy anymore. So on the positive side, we didn't made lots of changes at home.

So we, I had a two and a half year old and we took the side of his car so I could sort of transition him to a big boy bed. We took my youngest, my six month old, and his cradle out from the end of our bet and put him in his own room. And I stopped breastfeeding so that my husband and mother-in-law could help with bottle feeding.

So the downside was that I became absolutely obsessed with sleep. And I was totally convinced that my six-month-old and my two-and-a-half-year-old were conspiring together to keep me from sleeping. So it all came to a head one day when I'd managed to get them both down at the same time, which was a miracle. And I was laying down in bed and I could hear that my eldest was out of his cot. And he wasn't being loud, he wasn't crying or anything. But as I lay there listening to him, second by second I got more and more enraged.

To the point where I just burst into his room and I picked him up off the floor and I threw him really hard into the cot and I screamed at him, stay in your cot. And he wasn't physically hurt, but I'll never forget a look of sheer terror on his face. So the next day I thought, okay, I'm gonna go to this group counselling. And even though this terrible thing had happened with my eldest child, I still felt like kind of like a fraud or an imposter. And I was

shocked to walk in and find that none of them actually had three heads. None of them were in the corner rocking or foaming at the mouth. They're actually a lot like me. And a week later I got another shock because one of the sort of healing parts of the counseling process was to call family and friends and to let them know that you got postnatal depression. So I ran my mom and she was, you know, great and supportive and then I ran a friend and sort of solemnly said that I had postnatal depression. And she was like, I had it with both of my kids, and I was on medication for six years. I was like, what?

And then she went on to say that another friend of ours had post-nighter depression with her kids, and she was on medication as well. And I was like, what is this wackback conspiracy? It's like something out of the ex-fals or something. Anyway, the next year and a half things were, you know, going okay. And then I hit a rough patch, and just for shits and giggles, I thought that I would toilet train both of my children at the same time.

Now, I wouldn't recommend this to my worst enemy. And what basically happened was I was just pissed off 24-7. I was so angry at everyone. The whole family was walking around on the shelves. And finally, my mother-in-law sat me down and she was crying. And she said, Liz, I don't know what to do. Every time I do something, you get angry. Any time, anyone does anything, you get angry.

And I just don't know what to do anymore. So the next day I went to the doctor and I felt defeated, I felt like I'd failed when I told her that I thought I needed medication. And she was sort of talking to me, explaining, you know, all about the medication and I was crying and she just sort of casually said, I don't know why they just don't put it in the water. And I know that may not sit well with everyone,

but that was something I really needed to hear that day, because it normalised it for me. So after about two weeks of being on the medication, which it was really freaky, and not in a, let's go to the bedroom and get freaky, more of a holy shit, the whole earth is just shifted two degrees to the left, and no one seems to know except for me, kind of freaky. But after that, it was like this calm kind of settled on me and that terrible storm of anger and rage and fury just kind of dissipated like mist when the sun comes up. And I realised that it was more important for me to stand in my truth and admit that I needed help with life and motherhood than to stand by and do nothing and risk hurting the ones that I love the most. That was Elizabeth Gray. She lives in Melbourne with her husband and two teenage sons, and she says that she's still recovering from homeschooling them over three separate lockdowns.

I asked her what she would tell other mothers who were dealing with post-partum depression. She said, talk to people, talk to your doctor, asking for help and taking medication if you need it to help you get through this time is not something to be ashamed of. You should be proud of yourself for taking steps to improve your life and your children's lives. And she also said to take lots of photos. Because when you look back, you will need a reminder that it wasn't all terrible. To see photos of Elizabeth with her boys,

go to themoth.org. One of the tenons of the Hippocratic Oath states, I will remember that there is an art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy and understanding may outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug. Our final storyteller, Dr. Chris Catrain, took that oath to heart. She shared this story in Islam in the Twin Cities. Here's Chris. I was so excited when I first started working at a children's hospital. It was my first day and I could not wait. I put on my brand new white coat and it still had like the creases in it from being on the package. And I was headed to the children's hospital and I was so excited to actually learn what

I've been waiting and reading about the whole time. And I had three whole years that I had to follow around these attending physicians. They are the gods of medicine, right? They know everything, they're calm, it doesn't matter what's happening. And I need, have three years to suck everything out of their head and put it in my body so that I know how to take care of kids. And that's what I was going to do in three years. And I was ready to get started. So immediately, I walked behind this attending physician in oncology, and the Cancer Award in the Children's Hospital. And I sit down and I listen to this wonderful physician

compassionately tell these terrified parents that their teenage boy has leukemia, and that it's treatable, and that the treatment's actually pretty scary, but he's going to help block them through. And two nights later, I'm on call. An on call is different because the gods leave and they go home and the hospital is run by the residents. So here I am, creases in my coat, ready to be on call.

And it becomes very clear to me very quickly that this child is getting very sick. And all of the things that I heard this wonderful physician tell this family could possibly happen to their child were happening tonight when I was on. And I order labs and I order meds and I push IV fluids like I've been trained to do right and it's not working and I try again and it's still not working. And now what was really exciting is now really, really scary. And I call the ICU and I say, I think this child actually

needs to be in your intensive care unit because they're really sick. And they said, I agree, Chris. Yeah, Beth, you've done a good job. That's great. We don't have a bed. We'll call you when we do. And so I call the oncology god of the night

and I wake him up at home and he says, good job kid, see you tomorrow. And that's when I really start sweating. And by the time we actually got this child into the elevator to go to the ICU, I am spent. Those elevator doors shut and I slide down the wall and I'm shaking. I smell like armpits and feet. It's bad. And then I realize it's 6.30 in the morning. It's

time to check morning labs and go on with the rest of the day and I still have a whole day ahead of me. And right when I sit down to check labs, I get a call from one of my residents down in the ICU who tells me, Chris, I just thought you'd want to know, your patient just died. And I was devastated. I was just devastated. How could they die? I'm here to learn everything about how save kids, right? I mean, go to the children in hospital, get the miracle, that's the deal, right? So I'm there and it's just not happening. How could he be dead? I was talking to them yesterday and we were joking about golf. This child was a left-handed golfer who was on a golf team in his high school and I was talking about how my two-year-old son had gotten a plastic set of

golf clubs as a present and was so pissed off because he couldn't hit the ball because he's left-handed and they don't make left-handed golf clubs for toddlers. And we were joking about it and now he's gone. And just the way the hospital works, it moves on, it keeps going and I had to keep going and not process any of this. And so it moves on, I move on, and I'm at the next call night three nights later. And I've been through a terrible night, I've been up 30, 35 hours, I don't remember the last time I peed or ate or brushed my hair or teeth. And as I'm that spent, I'm working on notes for the day and I hear Dr. Katrina and I look up and I see this man and here comes the dad and my patient and he said I think you're I think you're going to really

like golf a lot more if he could hit the ball and he hands me this little golf club that he was his sons that he cut down into a two-year-old size. And I broke every little bit of egg shell that I had of facade around me that I had built that I was in control, broke, and yolks leaking on the floor. And I'm ugly crying, and we're hugging each other in the middle of the unit. And it's just a disaster. And I'm really not OK for a long time.

But the hospital moves on and I move on and I'm on my next rotation and years later, this is still happening, right? I'm not really processing these things like good doctors do, you just move on. But once a year I would allow myself this little indulgence where I would drive out to where this boy was from.

It was two hours away in the middle of nowhere. And I would grab a card and I would pull up into this church and I would write out like a diary every fear I had and I would put it on his grave and I would leave and just thought it would, you know, get wet in the rain or blow away or whatever. And I did it for seven years until I was wearing a white coat that didn't have creases in it anymore. And I had people walking around behind me asking me questions. And I got a page from the welcome desk at my hospital that I was working at in a different city. And they said, there's a delivery for you. You need to come downstairs and get this right now.

And I walked downstairs and here's the father of my patient. And he said, you didn't come this year and we were worried about you and he had all seven cards in his hand and he said I really just wanted to make sure you okay doc. Thanks. She says that her work continually sparks her curiosity and teaches her humility. Her patients have shown her at each stage of her career that she has so much to learn. And if she remembers to pause and be curious enough to ask them, they will teach her something amazing every time. Chris wanted to dedicate this story to her late uncle Andy.

She misses their talks. To see photos of Chris, head to themoth.org. You can share these stories or others for the Moth Archive and buy tickets to Moth Storytelling events in your area through our website, TheMoth.org. There are Moth Events all year round. Find a show near you and come out to tell the story. And find us on social media too. We're on Facebook and Twitter at the Moth and on Instagram at Moth Stories. That's it for this hour of Moth and a special thanks to all the doctors, nurses, and first responders that help take care of us every day. We hope you'll join us next time and that's the story from The Moth.

This episode of The Moth Radio Hour was produced by me, Jay Allison, Katherine Bernsen, Suzanne Russ, who also hosted the show. Co-producer is Vicki Merrick, Associate Producer Emily Couch. The stories were directed by Michelle Jolowski, with additional grand slam coaching by Chloe Sammon. The rest of the most leadership team includes Sarah Haberman, Sarah Austin Janess, Jennifer Hickson, Meg Bowles, Kate Tellers, Jennifer Birmingham, Marina Cluche, Leanne Gully, Brandon Grant,

Sarah Jane Johnson, and Aldi Caza. Most stories are true as remembered and affirmed by the storytellers. Our theme music is by the Drift. Other music in this hour from Chilly Gonzalez, Portico Cortet, Victor Wooten, Charlie Rouse, Fruitful, and Dustin O'Halloram. We receive funding from the National Endowment for the Arts. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media and Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and

presented by PRX for more about our podcast and for information on Pitching This, your own story and everything else. Go to our website, themoth.org.