My favorite form of punctuation is the ellipse. Because so...much can happen betwixt those three little dots...
Wednesday, February 04, 2009
Charlatan
I had a dead baby gig yesterday and it was the weirdest day ever. Usually we have the conversation in a room with a live video feed that goes into the conference room, right? So, everyone can watch the conversation as it's going on and then we finish and the doctors leave and go back to the conference room and then we join them and give them our feedback on how things went.
Well, there was no sound for the first conversation yesterday. So, they plopped us right there in the conference room with everyone. It was very odd. I mean, the whole thing is odd anyhow, but staying focused with an enormous table of doctors RIGHT THERE looking at you is particularly disconcerting. It went way better than I thought it would.
The sound was fixed for the last two conversations, thank goodness.
So, all sorts of papers and books have been written about how, as a medical professional, you answer the "What would you do?" question. So, I ask it. I wait until both options have been given about what to do for the baby, either continue all of this aggressive care, keep her on the machines knowing that she's going to grow up to be a vegetable, won't be able to talk, walk, feed herself, etc or we withdraw support and hold her as she dies in our arms. Then I say through my veil of believable sobs, "Do any of you have kids? (Wait for confirmation...) What would you do?" Now, usually this question causes a shift, right? That's what it's supposed to do, bring them to a level of humanity that is necessary to answer it. You're not supposed to actually answer it, that's not what the question is about, it's more a cry for recognition that this is, in fact, the hardest decision a new parent should ever be put in a position to make. In that moment, I want them to be a human, not a doctor. Now, usually the doctors pause... and then say that they don't know what they would do, that they can't imagine how hard that would be, that they would be making the decision out of love as we are and blah blah blah. They usually are prepared for the question and answer it with a level of disassociation that, Christ, you really have to have if you're a NICU doctor or nurse.
Yesterday I asked the question. The doctor said yes, she had two kids. She started to answer... And then she started crying. I made a doctor cry. Oops. It was so crazy! And beautiful. And appropriate. And awkward. In the scenario, it was perfect, it's what I was calling out for, an answer to my humanity and she gave it. It didn't make me not respect her as a doctor or anything. The other two actors started crying too.
But, here's the thing. I felt like a fraud. I mean, I was ACTING! She, the doctor, was genuinely CRYING. I was crying too, but it was acting crying, but then she was crying for real and I just felt so bad! It was maybe the weirdest and most complicated acting experience I have had to date.
I wanted to say, "Oh no no no no, see? I'm just kidding! I've never had a baby! I'm just pretend crying! Shhh... It's ok! CUT!" But of course I couldn't, but I did end up apologizing, as my character and then of course this brought about all sorts of discussion in the conference room after how I comforted her and hooray humanity etc. etc.
But dang. I sure felt bad for making that nice doctor lady cry. She must really love her kids. Me? I just pretend to really love my pretend baby.
I'm a fraud.