Her Story

As I waited for the hospital’s operator to connect me with “Mrs. K,” I couldn’t help but feel a bit anxious. Mrs. K and I had spoken twice before, but our conversations, while friendly, had been brief. I had introduced myself as her new Patient Student Partner – the first-year medical student who would follow and support her medical care for the next three years – and I had begun to inquire about her life, about her health, and about scheduling the medical and narrative interviews required for my Patient Student Partnership course. However, most of my questions had been met with little more than a cheerful “Uh-huh” or “Okay.” Despite my enthusiasm, I hadn’t managed to spark much of a discourse, and I wondered whether I had taken the wrong approach. From the information I’d received when I was first paired with her, I also knew that Mrs. K, now in her mid-60s, had experienced a stroke 10 years earlier and that her daughter helped to coordinate much of her medical care. I suspected that these factors might make it difficult for Mrs. K to communicate her personal and clinical histories to me.

When I later met with my student mentor, the fourth-year medical student who had been Mrs. K’s previous Patient Student Partner, she affirmed my experience. Mrs. K just wasn’t very talkative, my mentor explained, but she was comfortable describing her life and health when asked. This characterization felt equal parts reassuring and daunting. I was relieved to learn that my initial interactions with Mrs. K hadn’t been anomalous – that is, that I presumably hadn’t made some kind of first-year blunder that had rendered my first-ever patient relationship rapport-less. At the same time, Mrs. K’s reserved nature meant that fostering the dialogue necessary to really get to know her would be challenging. But it was a challenge I felt eager to embrace.

Thus, I dove into interview preparation, poring over Mrs. K’s medical chart in Epic and parsing my student mentor’s “transition of care” report. Hoping a more structured approach might encourage a deeper exchange, I assembled a list of topics, such as how post-stroke weakness was affecting her daily life, whether she was still considering a biopsy to evaluate her cardiomyopathy, and what obstacles she was facing in navigating her diabetes, hypertension, and chronic kidney disease. Still, I knew these subjects might have to wait. First and foremost, I needed to start with open-ended questions about Mrs. K’s life. That way, she could take the lead in sharing whatever personal and medical information she felt comfortable describing.

So, when the operator finally connected me with Mrs. K for our interview, I carried this tactic in mind and began with a broad prompt: “Tell me what you like to do.”

There was a brief pause before Mrs. K replied, “Oh… just watch TV.”

Anxious to pick up this meager thread, I gently ventured further: “What shows do you like to watch?”

She hesitated a moment, then confided with a chuckle, “My stories.”

That was it. I had a way in.

I felt a grin of relief stretch across my cheeks as, barely believing my luck, I excitedly probed, “You mean soap operas?”

Basking in the glow of the Young and the Restless poster hanging on the bedroom wall behind me, I felt like I’d struck conversational gold: I had been an avid soap fan practically since birth.

Soon enough, Mrs. K and I were reveling in a lively discussion of the genre. Her favorite soaps were The Young and the Restless and General Hospital – my favorites as well. She had previously relished Days of our Lives, but she hadn’t been able to watch it since the show had moved to a subscription-based streaming site in 2022. I’d been stunned by that development too.

Seeking to build on our conversation’s momentum, I tried to dig deeper: who were her favorite characters, and what plotlines was she enjoying? She couldn’t offer much detail on these fronts, but that was okay. The important thing was, we’d found a connection. Mrs. K could see that I was genuinely interested in learning about what mattered to her, and I began to see that, as much as Mrs. K and I were a “patient” and a “student” in a pre-ordained curricular partnership, we were ultimately just two people who had a lot more in common than we might have guessed.

As our conversation eased on, I learned that watching TV was one of Mrs. K’s main hobbies. She couldn’t make frequent outings or participate in community activities due to having limited use of her right arm and leg – a result of her stroke. When I asked whether the stroke had forced her to make significant adjustments to her life, however, she said no. She didn’t seem to mind spending time at home. She savored the quiet of the suburban neighborhood she’d inhabited for decades, but she also loved that her house was always abuzz. Even through the phone, I could tell that her home was a hub of activity. At one point, she briefly paused our interview, seemingly because someone had arrived at her front door. After a few seconds, though, she happily resumed our call, explaining that someone else in the household could handle the visitor. Another time, when I asked how old her grandchildren were, I heard her repeat the question: “How old are you?” A moment later, she had the answer: her eldest grandchild would soon turn 29. I hadn’t realized her family was right there in the room with her.

I soon surmised that Mrs. K shared her home with several of her grandchildren, as well as with her husband and one of her children. Her other children lived nearby, as did her sister and brother. Mrs. K spoke lovingly of her family, detailing how her grandchildren helped to care for her, to manage the house, and to escort her to and from appointments. Though she felt that she could generally understand her health and her doctors’ recommendations, she also appreciated having a family member serve as a second set of ears during appointments. I was glad to hear that Mrs. K could count on her family for support, but this characterization didn’t surprise me. Her family’s dedication had been clear to me just from reviewing her medical chart: Mrs. K’s daughter was in frequent touch with Mrs. K’s physicians, whether to inquire about her medication regimens, to advocate for her to continue receiving a high number of home healthcare hours each week, or to explain the need for a full family discussion about whether she should pursue an invasive procedure. It was evident that Mrs. K’s family was deeply committed to supporting her with her medical care, and this seemed to be a big part of the reason why Mrs. K hadn’t found the transition to post-stroke life to be as arduous as some others might.

Mrs. K’s perseverance in the face of her stroke exemplified the sort of quiet resilience with which she seemed to confront all of her medical challenges. While I had thought she might find it difficult to juggle her myriad primary care and subspecialty visits, she described her appointment schedule as manageable. In reading her chart, I’d been similarly impressed by her ability to maintain long-term diabetes control with diet alone, an accomplishment that must have required tremendous diligence. Yet, when I broached the subject of diet, Mrs. K divulged – with an infectious laugh – that she liked to eat “anything under the sun.” When I asked about the shortness of breath that had been documented at her last Cardiology visit, she again displayed a “glass-half-full” mentality: her shortness of breath had improved somewhat, and since it only occurred with activity, it wasn’t too bothersome.

When I’d reviewed Mrs. K’s medical chart in preparation for our interview, her history had read like a list of Herculean challenges and equally Herculean feats. From our conversation, though, I found that she viewed her illnesses, and her remarkable ability to cope with them, as simple facts of life. Much more important to her were her daily sources of joy: her family, her home, and of course, her “stories.” As for Mrs. K’s own story, her medical conditions were a part of it, but certainly not a defining part.