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Denial




Denial is a handicap that a person continues to live with and even believes it to be the truth.Sometimes the consequences are evidently bad but at other times the individual continues to live a lie.It hampers growth in ways one cannot even fathom.
Today even as I was halfway through putting in a needle into a patient with pleural effusion  one of my juniors came to me with an ecg of a patient with what seemed like a hyperacute myocardial infarction .A few hasty questions and I sent him right back to the casualty with a host of instruction.Cutting short my procedure I found the gentleman screaming in pain which does not bode a good prognosis.The senior nurse was at it loading the patient with the required medication.
I got the entire nursing team running around when the patient just collapsed cold.In no time we were at it doing a good cardiopulmonary resuscitation but I had never seen a patient with cardiogenic shock survive but we kept them going.His heart would start beating with the adrenaline drive but he would again collapse as soon as we stopped cpr.Thus the cycle went on for about an hour.Ultimately we had to give up.
The relatives were well educated and understood the prognosis .I spoke to the relatives ,handed things over to my junior for the certificate and the formalities and rushed to the opd which was singlehandedly being managed by our junior.
While scrutinising his charts  on the retrospect we found that he had come to the hospital on several occasions with complaints of chest pain but his ecg had always been normal.I had never seen him but once one of the doctors had advised him a treadmill test a year back but he had ignored the suggestion .
The reason I write this is that I find denial extremely common in the patients we see.Several patients in the course of being treated for IHD have often insisted it is just ‘gas’.It takes some tough talking to convince them.
Some even after thrombolysis and recovery have insisted on the diagnosis of ‘gas’ and then have come back to us sheepishly with angio reports ready to listen to anything we say.
Contrary to this a cousin of mine who was doing pretty well in every which ways noticed a recent problem with his upper gastrointestinal system.As eccentric as my relatives are ,he walked into the gastroenterologists office and insisted that he be scoped..So the doctor obliged and was scared out of his boot to see a deadly growth lurking  in the GE junction.
Things did not look well but my cousin kickstarted the process with his family’s support .Almost a decade down the line ,by God’s grace ,he is doing very well.Some of us are hypochondriacs but doctors most times mean well.I find myself increasingly having to give good lectures to the patients .What they would just like is a hasty prescription to go home with.
Denial of physical,mental and spiritual  indisposition can have dangerous consequences.May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ lead us to truth and free us

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