Test, check. Well, he's been released again today, and I'm back where I started: Looking over old notes, listening to tapes, wondering how bad I potentially messed up this time. The wounds seem to be healing and he seems to be getting along, without his appendages. And I know he seemed fine; seems can be a very dangerous word, especially in this business - it can be fatal. Initial diagnosis - catatonic. I know he's back there somewhere, but there's just no response whatsoever, to any kind of stimulus. We'll start him with medication tomrorow - I'm sure of it. This man's tragedy has made him a prisoner in his own body. And it's not just tragedy, it's dementia, despair. It's this hole I can see in each of his eyes. For all the events that happened in this real world, kind of just fall through. It's loneliness in it's most crippling form: the kind that no amount of love, or human contact could ever mend. The patient was plagued by violent nightmares; terrible, deeply troubling dreams which one night overflowed into reality and he murdered his wife, in his sleep. These people were in love, deeply in love; and it was that love, filling those holes I can now see behind his eyes and it's my job to try to fill those holes with something else, but with what? Hope? I can fill his holes with drugs, soothing words - that's all. I hope his wounds will heal with time, but right now, things aren't looking good.
These lines I wear around my wrist are there to prove that I exist.
(patient): It's inside my torso, behind my eyes, in the back of my head. It feels like something's eating me alive, from the inside out.
(doctor): Well, that's grief, loss.
(patient): Don't tell me what it is.