I wrote the poem below after my daughter had been very sick and spent several scary days in the PICU. I was only 6 weeks into my first semester of the nursing program, and ultimately had to withdraw that semester and restart again at the beginning of the next one.

The poem illustrates how I felt as I waited alone outside the CT scan room door. Every once in awhile I pull it out and revisit how it felt to be on the other side of the exam table, and to help me remember the feelings that my patients are experiencing:

TRANSPARENT BOX
I sat in the hallway in my transparent box,
Hard plastic chair digging into my thighs.
I watched them walk by from my seat in the corner,
Saw their eyes gaze just past me as I started to cry.

Important people surely with lives to be saved,
lab test and requisitions and orders for meds.
Yet I sat there invisible in my transparent box,
Did they realize my baby was in one of their beds?

Oh sure, one kind-of smiled and one sort-of nodded,
hurrying past the hallway where I waited in fear.
Stethoscopes swinging and lab coats like badges;
They can deal with diagnoses but were blind to my tears.

So I sat clutching my shoulders, trying in vain
To reassure myself they were wrong, and it’s only a test.
Shivering, shaking, my world falling to pieces
While they bustled on past me doing their best
      To look beyond me in my transparent box
      Where I found no doors, no windows, no locks
      No sympathetic ear to commiserate or heal
      No simple words to confirm what I feel
Just me all alone… in my transparent box.