Through her thick glasses she is focused on a delicate task at hand- clipping the nails in a running bus. Across the aisle, occupying the whole seat, she has thrown her green duffel bag. Of all the places why did she choose to clip her nails in a running bus is beyond me. I sense defiance, as if she is trying to break monotony, poking the orderliness- silent passengers cautiously avoiding eye contacts- with her nail clipper and nails, making high pitched sounds of nails chopped by sharp, incisive, ruthless jaws of a nail clipper, the fragments flying around. She appears unperturbed by the flying bits of nails into a public space, by the clicks of nail clipper- starkly loud in a silent bus.
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A well-healed surgical scar with dark pigmentation stands out in her lower neck. I extend my hand for a hand shake, she has cold moist palms. We had sent her for a surgical removal of her thyroid gland because it was very large and over producing hormones.
She says she is doing markedly better. Much of her symptoms are gone but she still has a sensation as if something is stuck in the neck when swallowing. Surgical healing has gone very well, there is no obvious explanation to why she still has those symptoms. We plan for an endoscopic exam of throat and esophagus. Her thyroid hormone replacement is perfect.
Decision to send her for surgery was made with trepidation but the objective outcomes are perfect; we are happy.
I happen to examine her wrist and forearm. There are transverse scars extending all the way up from lower wrist to the bottom of middle third of her forearm. Perhaps 20 of them. They shout out loud she has tried slashing her wrist, several times, in the past.
That sight evokes a deep sense of melancholy, dragging you into the darkness of her despair, you feel like crying, with her, in loud roars and wails, beating the chest. Will she allow it-- to a perfect stranger, to a specialist dealing with her thyroid?
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A well-healed surgical scar with dark pigmentation stands out in her lower neck. I extend my hand for a hand shake, she has cold moist palms. We had sent her for a surgical removal of her thyroid gland because it was very large and over producing hormones.
She says she is doing markedly better. Much of her symptoms are gone but she still has a sensation as if something is stuck in the neck when swallowing. Surgical healing has gone very well, there is no obvious explanation to why she still has those symptoms. We plan for an endoscopic exam of throat and esophagus. Her thyroid hormone replacement is perfect.
Decision to send her for surgery was made with trepidation but the objective outcomes are perfect; we are happy.
I happen to examine her wrist and forearm. There are transverse scars extending all the way up from lower wrist to the bottom of middle third of her forearm. Perhaps 20 of them. They shout out loud she has tried slashing her wrist, several times, in the past.
That sight evokes a deep sense of melancholy, dragging you into the darkness of her despair, you feel like crying, with her, in loud roars and wails, beating the chest. Will she allow it-- to a perfect stranger, to a specialist dealing with her thyroid?
