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TheRealDoctorT's profile
Sayed Tabatabai, MD
Sayed Tabatabai, MD
Sayed Tabatabai, MD
@TheRealDoctorT

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Sayed Tabatabai, MD

@TheRealDoctorT

Nephrologist. I observe. I write. Cherish your stories. Listen to each other’s. Writing in Medium, Physician’s Weekly, WSJ, NPR. Owner of @iggythepetrock

San Antonio, TX
Joined October 2013

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    Sayed Tabatabai, MD‏ @TheRealDoctorT 21 Jul 2020

    The elevator doors slide open. There’s already someone inside, one of the hospitalists. He moves over to one side as I enter, subconsciously distancing. I look at him and smile, “Coming or going?” He doesn’t answer right away. Instead, he pauses, as if trying to remember. 1/

    10:02 AM - 21 Jul 2020
    • 1,714 Retweets
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    195 replies 1,714 retweets 4,058 likes
      1. New conversation
      2. Sayed Tabatabai, MD‏ @TheRealDoctorT 21 Jul 2020

        I know what he’s feeling. There’s another shift taking place in the hospital’s atmosphere. It’s affecting some of us more than others, but everyone is feeling it. We are in the dying of the light. “The dying hours,” says one of the intensivists. Death has come to collect. 2/

        4 replies 60 retweets 623 likes
        Show this thread
      3. Sayed Tabatabai, MD‏ @TheRealDoctorT 21 Jul 2020

        Don’t get me wrong. Death is always present in the hospital, the natural endpoint of all our journeys. It’s just that right now, it’s accelerating. More and more names disappear from my list, deceased or transferring to hospice, as more and more new names take their places. 3/

        2 replies 67 retweets 625 likes
        Show this thread
      4. Sayed Tabatabai, MD‏ @TheRealDoctorT 21 Jul 2020

        And it isn’t the kind of death we are used to. By now everyone has heard, or read about, or seen, or (God forbid) experienced the goodbyes from a distance. This particularly cruel price that COVID-19 insists on exacting. It’s distanced, but it’s not, you see. We are here. 4/

        3 replies 84 retweets 669 likes
        Show this thread
      5. Sayed Tabatabai, MD‏ @TheRealDoctorT 21 Jul 2020

        I’m sitting in the ICU dictation room with the intensivist. She looks to me, “You meet those new travel nurses from New York?” I nod, “I’m glad they’re here.” “You notice the way they handle the death? They’re numb.” I nod, “They’ve seen the ending to this story before.” 5/

        2 replies 87 retweets 723 likes
        Show this thread
      6. Sayed Tabatabai, MD‏ @TheRealDoctorT 21 Jul 2020

        “It’s affecting some of us more than others. You have to go numb. You have to deaden that part of yourself, to function. Keep that distance.” As she says “distance” the intensivist holds her hands apart. I know what she’s talking about. I’m doing it already. Going numb. 6/

        3 replies 66 retweets 666 likes
        Show this thread
      7. Sayed Tabatabai, MD‏ @TheRealDoctorT 21 Jul 2020

        Walking through a COVID ICU, it used to be jarring. Seeing one mechanically ventilated patient after another lying on their bellies, their faces turned away as if unwilling to form any connection that might remind them of how they once breathed freely. Now, I’m used to it. 7/

        1 reply 75 retweets 639 likes
        Show this thread
      8. Sayed Tabatabai, MD‏ @TheRealDoctorT 21 Jul 2020

        Is some vital part of me dying off too? Withering and wasting away as I focus on distance, distance, distance. Human beings weren’t made to pass by each other in ever-widening orbits. Life is not lived at a distance. And yet we must. We must. To have any chance at all. 8/

        4 replies 117 retweets 858 likes
        Show this thread
      9. Sayed Tabatabai, MD‏ @TheRealDoctorT 21 Jul 2020

        People ask me how my day was. I used to try and think of a way to describe it. Now I can’t even try. I know the question is innocent, it shows that they care, it’s polite. But it also shows that they have no idea. Don’t make me relive these long days, these small hours. 9/

        3 replies 72 retweets 802 likes
        Show this thread
      10. Sayed Tabatabai, MD‏ @TheRealDoctorT 21 Jul 2020

        It isn’t all death, of course. My view is skewed as a consultant, I often see the sickest patients in the hospital. People are getting better too, recovering. But today it feels like those points of light are just flashes in an infinite darkness. Fleeting, delicate hope. 10/

        2 replies 47 retweets 653 likes
        Show this thread
      11. Sayed Tabatabai, MD‏ @TheRealDoctorT 21 Jul 2020

        One of the patients is put on ECMO and transferred out. The intensivist invites me to observe. As if she senses that my soul needs something to hold on to. It’s an incredible thing to see. Truly. For a moment, enrapt, I forget the realities of my world. 11/

        3 replies 40 retweets 602 likes
        Show this thread
      12. Sayed Tabatabai, MD‏ @TheRealDoctorT 21 Jul 2020

        But it all comes crashing back down. “Attention, Code Blue.” Somewhere in the hospital, Death reminds us that whatever hope we hold on to will only slip through our fingers. I want to go home, to the Before I can no longer return to. I want to sleep. No dreams. Please. 12/

        5 replies 59 retweets 694 likes
        Show this thread
      13. Sayed Tabatabai, MD‏ @TheRealDoctorT 21 Jul 2020

        The last time I cried was July 10th. Well... and tonight, July 17th. Exactly one week apart, to the hour. It happens in the shower. As if the water might camouflage the tears, and make them indistinguishable from the rivulets running down my body. Down the drain. 13/

        10 replies 63 retweets 846 likes
        Show this thread
      14. Sayed Tabatabai, MD‏ @TheRealDoctorT 21 Jul 2020

        The days are blurring together. Everyone feels this, inside and outside the hospital. I live my life one shift at a time. I exist in the reddened grooves my PPE etches into my skin. Today is whatever day people say it is. COVID doesn’t count the hours, and neither do I. 14/

        7 replies 86 retweets 755 likes
        Show this thread
      15. Sayed Tabatabai, MD‏ @TheRealDoctorT 21 Jul 2020

        I finish my work for the day. I’m exhausted. The kind of exhaustion that makes your soul ache. I get on the elevator as the doors slide open, and a nurse gets on with me. “Hey Dr. T,” she smiles, “coming or going?” I smile, and then pause for a moment, trying to remember.

        159 replies 141 retweets 2,154 likes
        Show this thread
      16. End of conversation

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