Conversations You Only Hear in a Hospital #1

There are only a handful of times I’ve been speechless in the hospital. I’m pretty quick on my feet. I tend to always have an answer.

But not this time.

The culprit? A frustrated, haggard, middle-aged woman.

The reason? Her mother, an even more haggard, bent-over old woman.

The trigger? Money.

I had just spelled out the old woman’s diagnosis to both of them. I told them the prognosis. Then, I listed the treatment options.

The number one option was only available in Accra, Ghana’s capital city. It was priced in dollars...thousands of dollars.

The daughter stared at me. A dark hood seemed to fall over her face. She turned slowly to look at her mother. The look got darker.

When she turned back to me, I caught a glimmer of tears in her eyes.

 Then she laughed...

It wasn’t joyful. It was a cold, mirthless sound. And when she spoke, her voice was laced with bitterness.

“She ignored me when I was a child. Ignored me and maltreated me.”

My speechlessness began.

“She was always favoring my brother and sister. All the time. Now they’ve left, and I’m the one left to take care of her. When I call them for money, they ignore me!”

Her dam broke. The tears came.

“It’s not fair,” she said, voice trembling. “It’s not fair.”

I was frozen.

To be honest, I’m not sure what I said in the end. It was a blur. I might have said, “I’m sorry.” I probably offered some encouragement. I likely emphasized that the conservative management, as opposed to the thousand-dollar option, didn’t necessarily mean a terrible outcome.

But the moment stayed with me.

I walked away from that conversation with new knowledge. Not every wound has a prescription.

This is the first in a new series I’m calling Conversations You Only Hear in a Hospital. These are the kinds of honest, complex, and sometimes uncomfortable moments that happen when people are at their most vulnerable. They remind us that healthcare isn’t just about diagnoses and treatments. It’s also about the human stories we walk into every day.

You can read the second article here.