Trauma Comes Home

Abstract

Ever since I was 12 years old, I've associated the shrill ring of the telephone with the delivery of bad news. In January 1987, the phone rang with the news that my paternal grandfather had been killed in a car crash. Six months later, his wife, my grandmother, died as well. Eighteen months after that, the phone rang again with the news that my maternal grandfather had died suddenly of a newly diagnosed cancer. And in May 1992, the phone rang with the news that my maternal grandmother had been found dead in her apartment. Finally, in October 1993, the phone rang with the news that my father had been shot dead by a terrorist. 1 Having lived through 5 sudden deaths in 6 years, I had, foolishly, prided myself on knowing all I needed to know about grief and trauma. Yes, I knew a pain so sharp that it hurt to breathe, a sadness so vast that it hurt to laugh, and an emptiness so wide that it hurt to simply exist. But this fall, I quickly realized that while I knew some about sudden death and complicated grief, I knew almost nothing about the fear, frustration, angst, and anxiety caused by watching a loved one suffer.The phone rang twice on September 28, 2020, before I surfaced from my postcall coma. The previous night at work had been brutal: 10 consults and performing 4 surgeries, each more challenging than