“نعيماً” (pronounced “Na’iman”) is my favorite Arabic phrase. Google Translate does it a disservice by translating it to “bliss,” which doesn’t come close to evoking the feelings of renewed spirit after someone greets you with a warm نعيماً. It is a celebration of cleansing–exclaimed excitedly to a friend after rejuvenating activities such as a haircut or a shower. Many of you have likely never experienced the remarkable ability of these three syllables to make you feel like a spring day – how much emotional depth, how many feelings, and what realizations are we barred from due to the inability to explain different human experiences?

            The searing pain from the scalding water subsided as my focus moved to my last hour’s crash course; “Camper’s, Scarpa’s, rectus…” I chanted these wizard-like terms as the soap carrying microbial life dripped from my elbow into the drain below–hoping that those spells would be my saving grace from any looming questions. My repetition immediately succumbed to the discordant tones of the operating room orchestra – beeps from the robotic choir and muffled side conversations from the human section – as I backed in, hands held high and (embarrassingly) still sopping wet. After the standard preoperative rituals, our attention turned to the patient. Before my eyes, a melon-sized stomach was prepped for surgery, morphing its color from white, to yellow, and finally, brown, before a drape was raised and the operation was set to begin. As it is with children, all medical operations are special and parents have no favorites. However, as is also true with children, there is always a uniquely special operation–and it’s this one! For starters, there are people present in the room with no responsibilities, and, surprisingly, less medical knowledge than me. Additionally, there will be one extra person leaving the room than came in (maybe those wizard terms are magic).

With a slick movement of a blue-clad arm, the sharp, silver blade glided effortlessly under the belly button to reveal a reef of yellow clumps and red dots. Hands were the tools of choice for the rest of the procedure. Seconds of coordinated tearing and pulling resulted in a gush of fluid escaping as if our patient had secretly been harboring a water balloon beneath their skin. Emerging out of the depths of this ocean came the smallest arm I had ever seen, followed by a head that looked bothered to be awakened from their sensory deprivation stay. The newly emerged person grabbed my finger and was given to the parents as we inspected the uterus and began to close our incision, attempting to follow basic manners and leave the baby’s old home like we found it.

I felt frozen in time as I watched how quickly the well-coordinated medical parade was in concluding this operative journey. Voices carrying commands seemed to be haphazardly coming from all sides of the room, yet each was like an arrow – intentional, concise, and targeted – delivering instructions that transformed the group into a single working body. Swift movements of blurry arms exchanging red-stained tools filled my vision. I heard laughs and celebrations from the couple on the right side of the room while a crying baby was at the opposite side, huddled over by four nurses like investigators at a crime-scene. Just a moment ago the tension in the room was palpable–we were well-trained soldiers looking out to an unbelievably studied, yet unknown battlefield; now, I felt like a part of the clean-up crew after a concert. The creation of life and the beginning of forever has a beginning and an end – it’s difficult to believe that such indescribable moments can be bound by time. Somehow, the clocks find their way to inch forward and the secondhand ticks as the world moves on. I scanned the scene before me, absorbing this impossible miracle–one moment I was standing in a pool of blood, and at the next I was taking a photo of the new family made whole. I still believe that the power of this event transcended time.

            After tearing the tight scrub cap off my sweaty head and changing out of the baggy, blue scrubs, the magnitude of the moment hit me. The pressure in my mind deflated like the amniotic sac had done beneath the scalpel and I was carried to heights previously unbeknownst to me. The events in that brightly lit room were the culmination of years of group conversations, heartbreak, and triumph, as two parents and their village walked through the health journey of a non-vocal entity within them. The resolution of this pilgrimage is exuded in a sudden burst of fluid followed by the cries of a baby on their first birthday, as if they were questioning the answers they had heard over the last nine months while helplessly listening to discussions about their fate. Though I only knew the patient for 3 hours, the strength of our connection was tangible as I had the privilege of being a part of their most special moment. At the very least, mine is the first hand this baby held in their whole life, how could this moment not be special to me! Walking out of the hospital, I felt invincible – “anything could happen to me” I thought to myself, “and I would be okay.”  Nothing could’ve touched me, and I was reminded of why I had chosen a career in healthcare.

Hours later I found myself emerging through white clouds on a flight back home. While my body soared towards the heavens my mind became grounded as I realized the silent danger in the powerful emotions I had felt. The feelings associated with childbirth that had been coursing through my body – attachment, fulfillment, euphoria – were all stolen. I was struck with the brutal truth that none of those emotions fully belonged to me–I was reflecting the parents’ joy in a passing manner, like the moon mirrors the sun. They might remember my name for the next hour, the next week. They might never think to mention to their child that an eager medical student helped bring them into this world and held their hand for the first time, whereas I felt that this experience had permanently altered the chemistry of my brain. It was an astonishing and overwhelming realization, and I had never felt so close to the ground while being 40,000 feet above it. With these realizations, I was left with the same disoriented feeling I had in the third grade when my mind slipped and I confidently called my teacher “mom” to the amusement of my classmates and utter embarrassment to myself. Just because the shame of that moment is strong enough to stifle its recurrence, there is no reason to believe that this mental enmeshment does not happen in other avenues of life. While healthcare provides us the honor of walking with people in their most vulnerable moments, it also makes us prone to confuse meaningful events in our own lives with experiences we unknowingly steal from our patients during their care. We owe it to ourselves, the people around us, and our patients to have lives of our own and not to fall into the trap of exchanging our long-term joy for the momentary happiness experienced as we live vicariously through our patients.

There is no term that accurately distinguishes the emotions we feel from personal events with those we experience through other people. I have tried to verbalize it as best as I could in this piece, but as Franz Kafka once said, “all language is but a poor translation.” Just as I hope that those who don’t speak Arabic may experience the feeling of “نعيماً,” I hope that we might think beyond language and critically consider our mental simplifications and the ways we seek fulfillment for the sake of those who bring true meaning to our lives, our patients, and ourselves.  “الله ين’أم عليك” (“Allah Yen’am alayk”).