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Metaphors and Medicine (Year I): Chapter 17

 I thought the door was closed since we had not started screening patients yet, but when I turned around, I saw a small little human with golden hair smiling up at us.

As soon as I saw her, I waved, and her face lit up. Holding her doll in one hand, she slipped away from the door and disappeared. A few seconds later, she popped her head back in, as though playing “peek a boo” with us and thoroughly impressed with herself. I couldn’t help but smile, seeing someone so innocent and unaware of the larger context of what was happening.

It was the first day of the mission, the day of screening, where the team screened as many patients as they could. She was one of them, and she was the first patient I met as soon as I set my stuff down in the room to prepare for the day ahead. I had been nervous that morning, unsure of what to expect at a different hospital than the one I volunteered in last, and in a different city. Mostly, I was anxious knowing how the last trip had stuck with me, how the stories had lasted me, fueled me, sustained me. Surely I had grown and changed in the 3 years since, so I wasn’t sure how things would sink in this time, how deep the stories would be ingrained within me. When the morning began with this little soul’s smile, I knew that some things just never change, a child’s innocence remains to be seen with the same purity, fills a hole in your chest in a way you didn’t realize something could, and truly awakens joy within you.


On my last day, I made my way to the room she shared with some other patients. Her case was complex, and she faced a long winding road of further treatment ahead of her. But what remained the same was her childhood, her youth, the innocence that kept her feeling light and lively. I played peek a boo with her over the shoulder of one of our surgeons, returning the favor from the first day she eased my own nerves. Once again, her smile decorated her face. I think it’ll be hard to forget how difficult it was to hold her hand and say goodbye.


You never expect to become that connected to souls in the span of a few days, but the ones that change you leave an imprint on your life that sustains you.

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