A journal entry: a physician with depression

This is a guest post from an anonymous disabled physician who wishes to share a journal entry:

October 12 2009

Today I went to the dermatologist to have a recurrence of the basal cell carcinoma removed from my arm. Dr. C is a wonderful, kind, a brilliant devoutly Christian dermatologist who is also beautiful tall long and lean. In the past I honestly have felt slightly jealous of her. Her beauty, her thinness, her ability to have excelled in medical school and her residency enough to get her a place in a highly competitive dermatological residency.

I am kept 45 minutes longer in the waiting room than in previous visits. The nurse finally comes to place me in a room. She asks me about any new medications changes. I shamefully tell her about the three new medications I am on for depression. Interestingly the nurse does not look at me with a sort of thinly veiled disgust when I mention these new meds. I show the nurse my new cancer and then tell her that my hair has been falling out in clumps and my nails are thin splitting and frail. She leaves the room.

In comes Dr. C, I am shocked. Is this the same person I have seen on so many visits before? She is a shadow of herself, cachexic looking with her face, chest and abdomen sunken in. Her clothing seems baggy. Her hair is dull, she is pale haggard looking, no smile today just a face made old by the look of some sort of existential pain. She seems slightly confused. The nurse gently guides her. She asks for my complaints. She looks at my arm and then my hair and nails. She then asks if I am on a diet or have started new meds. She looks on the medication list. She says “all these medications for depression? There are so many”. There is a sense of panic in her voice. I tell her this is my fourth distinct episode of depression and it is being much harder to control. I tell her I have been this ill for awhile now. She looks at me and says "I am very depressed too". She tells me that her husband and she are in therapy after 19 years of marriage. She says it is helping her husband more than her. She looks away at the floor and seems slowed down. The sadness in the room is palpable. Her nurse returns and redirects her. She goes to work shaving off and cauterizing the cancer from my arm. This she does well like her usual self.