Into The Abyss

Samantha Studvick is an MS3 and a student leader in San Antonio at the UIW School of Osteopathic Medicine. She composed this poem to challenge physicians (and really all people) to really listen and care about a response when we ask the question, "How are you?"

“How are you?”

A seemingly simple question,

with an answer

as complex as the inner ear.

“I’m fine”

we all say,

nuanced.

But it isn’t true.

Each day, we inch

towards death;

our fate is sealed.

“How are you?”

“Unwell.”

“What’s the problem?”

“Nothing”

Words escape me.

“What brings you in today?”

we ask the patient.

What brings me in today?

Am I the patient?

“My head hurts.”

Surely a brain tumor.

“Could you describe it?”

“Exquisitely tender;”

De Quervain’s thyroiditis

of the soul.

“Everything appears normal.

 Just get some rest.”

I close my eyes

in search of endless sleep,

only to awaken,

days later,

to the voices in my head.

Drown them out.

Fill your head with noise.

You can’t listen to two things at once.

Multitasking is really

task-switching.

I hone in on the symphony of life,

but I’m still figuring out the tune.

Was this supposed to be a solo?

Am I playing the right part?

I sit back

and listen,

to embrace the beat.

Lub-dub, lub-dub.

Life’s passing me by.

Next song.

“How are you?”

“Fine.”

Like the chromatin of blast cells

in leukemia,

cancer.

I am coursing through life,

like blood in the splenic artery.

I can’t see the end.

My path is

tortuous.

“How’s it going?”

“I’ve got chest pain.”

“Worse with exercise?”

Worse with every waking moment.

“Not really.”

A substernal pressure,

the weight of the world

crushing my ribs

with every breath.

I am slowly suffocating.

“Clear to auscultation, bilaterally”

 “I’m feeling dizzy.”

“Is the room spinning? Or are

you spinning?”

The world is spinning,

as it normally does.

With every turn,

a new day begins.

And life slips away,

spinning out of control.

“You seem well.”

My heart is overflowing;

the demand is greater than

the supply.

It builds and builds,

and the pressure rises;

my veins distend.

The system is overwhelmed.

I am drowning.

“Yes, everything is great.”

There are monsters

inside me,

parasites,

sucking life from my blood.

I am bleeding out,

anemic from demons

within.

I am weak.

My body aches.

Sticks and stones may

break my bones,

but words…

those are what will

kill me.

Like a scalpel to the soul,

they penetrate

deeper than skin,

a wound my body

cannot heal.

I am mentally sawn asunder.

“How are you?”

You asked me,

from a distance,

as I stood at the edge.

The answer,

a whispered echo,

only to fall

on deaf ears.

The lure of the abyss

beckoning.

The fright of the

Unknown.

What’s holding me back?

Patient is

"difficult."

Noncompliant.

A "frequent flyer"

within the [broken] system.

She presents with

nonspecific

concerns,

not attributable to medical cause.

She is unable to identify the onset,

and symptoms radiate to many

other body systems.

She reports that

nothing

makes it better.

Follow-up in six months;

will likely refer out.

“When did the patient

expire?”

She’s been dead for

years.

“Time of death, 15 hours ago”

“Cause of death?”

“How are you?”

The simple question

that could save a life,

if only one was willing

to read

between the lines.