ICU -- Into The Bardo
For an infant
or young child in the
intensive care unit, everything is unrooted and strange. Much of it is completely
perplexing and
painful. While our
intentions are good,
I know we must seem like demons or sadists come to torment. All of the slender threads
of normality and
connection with those precious daily routines are severed. Some of my patients who
have been very sick
and hospitalized as young children appear to have rebounded fully while
others
are marked for life. We’ve
learned how
not to blind children with excess oxygen and we can operate on a baby
in utero
but we are only just beginning to understand that we also need to heal
the
wounded spirit.