Sometimes the things that change us are the ones we never intended to watch.
It should come as no surprise to anyone who has known me for any length of time that I don’t really watch “normal” television.
My comfort shows have always been Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, Bob’s Burgers, and just about anything Star Wars. Give me spaceships, impossible ethical dilemmas, awkward cartoons, and a little hope for humanity, and I’m happy.
Until last week…
I had never watched an episode of Dr. Phil.
Not one.
I had heard the name, of course, but I had never actually sat down and watched the show.
Then something unexpected happened.
I Couldn’t Look Away
Last week, I went to visit my neighbor, who is recovering from surgery.
While she rested, I started doing her dishes, and Dr. Phil happened to be playing on the television in the background.
The episode centered around a woman who was eight months pregnant and addicted to heroin.
I couldn’t look away.
I wasn’t fascinated.
I was heartbroken.
I couldn’t understand how someone could continue using drugs while carrying a baby.
I couldn’t understand why she was prostituting herself to support her addiction.
I couldn’t understand how she seemed so emotionally detached when she was told that her child would likely be born addicted to heroin.
Then the show cut to footage of a newborn suffering from withdrawal.
The baby cried and cried, unable to be comforted.
I didn’t even know babies could be born addicted to drugs.
That image has stayed with me all week.
The Thought That Wouldn’t Leave Me
I found myself thinking about that mother.
Praying for her.
Praying for her baby.
Praying for her family.
Hoping she found sobriety.
Hoping that little baby eventually found peace.
Hoping her family found healing after what had to have been an unimaginable journey.
The entire situation was heartbreaking.
But something else happened that I never expected.
Then I Thought About Healthcare Workers
Over the past several years, I have spent more time in doctors’ offices, specialists’ clinics, imaging centers, and emergency rooms than I ever imagined possible.
Living with chronic illness changes your relationship with healthcare.
Most of the people I have encountered have been wonderful.
Kind.
Compassionate.
Patient.
But not all.
Like many chronically ill patients, I have also experienced providers who were dismissive, rushed, impatient, and at times, outright cruel.
For years, I couldn’t understand it.
How could someone dedicate their life to healing people while treating patients with so little kindness?
Then I watched that episode.
And suddenly…
I wasn’t just thinking about the woman on the screen anymore.
I was thinking about every nurse, physician, paramedic, technician, and emergency room worker who has lived through stories like hers.
“For me, this was one hour of television. For them, this is everyday life.”
Compassion Fatigue Is Real
For me, that episode was emotionally overwhelming.
I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
I carried it with me for days.
Healthcare workers don’t experience stories like that once.
Many experience them every single shift.
They see babies born into addiction.
They watch families unravel.
They care for people trapped by mental illness, addiction, abuse, and circumstances that feel impossible to escape.
Sometimes they save them.
Sometimes they can’t.
Sometimes they watch the same people return over and over again, desperately hoping that this time the story will end differently.
I found myself wondering what that does to a person’s heart.
Not because it excuses cruelty.
It doesn’t.
But perhaps it explains part of it.
Compassion fatigue is real.
Emotional exhaustion is real.
Secondary trauma is real.
Maybe after years of carrying the weight of other people’s tragedies, some healthcare workers begin protecting themselves the only way they know how.
Again…
That doesn’t make it okay.
Patients deserve kindness.
Always.
Especially when they’re frightened.
Especially when they’re vulnerable.
Especially when they’re in pain.
But healthcare workers deserve something too.
They deserve space to admit that what they witness changes them.
Because it has to.
Two Things Can Be True
As someone living with what I jokingly call Broken Body Syndrome, I know firsthand how much kindness matters.
A doctor who believes you.
A nurse who sits down for thirty seconds.
Someone who looks you in the eye instead of the computer.
Those moments become medicine all by themselves.
They don’t cure disease.
But they heal something else.
At the same time…
I think those of us who are patients can acknowledge another truth.
Many of the people caring for us are carrying stories we will never know.
Stories that follow them home.
Stories that wake them up at night.
Stories that slowly chip away at parts of themselves they probably never expected to lose.
Patients deserve compassion.
Healthcare workers deserve compassion, too.
Those two ideas aren’t in conflict.
I think they’re inseparable.
To My Healthcare Worker Readers
Thank you.
Thank you for the lives you’ve saved.
Thank you for the impossible decisions you’ve had to make.
Thank you for sitting with people during the worst moments of their lives.
Thank you for carrying burdens most of us will never fully understand.
I see you.
I appreciate you.
And I’m sorry for the things you’ve had to witness in order to care for the rest of us.
To My Fellow Zebras
We know what it’s like to walk into an exam room hoping someone believes us.
We know what it’s like to be scared.
We know what it’s feels like to wonder if today will be the day someone finally listens.
When a healthcare worker chooses kindness…
It changes everything.
Kindness doesn’t cure disease.
But it heals something medicine can’t touch.
So maybe that’s where we begin.
By extending a little more grace to one another.
Patients.
Healthcare workers.
Families.
All of us.
Because behind every chart is a human being.
And behind every stethoscope…
There is one too.
Maybe healing has never belonged to just one side of the exam table.
Maybe it begins the moment we remember that we’re all carrying something
We all need a collective Living with Vascular Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome
