Crisis Manager

Cameron loved her grandmother Betty very much. She was struggling with the first bouts of depression when Betty died, unexpectedly, in her sleep.

Cameron was twelve. She was devastated. Her internal grief was as real as her outward display.

But her depression immediately lifted and then stayed dormant for almost a year.

At Betty’s funeral, she recalled thinking, “Why God, why??” And also, “Huh. That’s interesting.”

Her junior year, Cameron and her sister were in a serious car accident. Jen was relatively unharmed, but Cameron was forced into six weeks of convalescence.

She told her therapist the truth: She felt emotionally fine. The accident had been scary, sure. And physical therapy was no fun. But her depression was nowhere to be found. It had smashed with the breaking of the windshield.

Cameron wasn’t a monster or a sociopath. As such, she was happy when her dad’s cancer went into remission. She loved her dad! Of course she did!

She just…did her best living in crisis mode. There was something deeply wrong with her brain.

By the age of forty, Cameron had won several awards for her excellence as a trauma surgeon. Her happiest days were when patients almost died but didn’t. She always wanted to save them; she did her damnedest to make it happen. The sound of their heartbeat was profoundly triumphant.

In contrast, after shifts when no bloody patients graced her table, Cameron rested less easily.

“Please God,” thought Cameron as she waited for the test results. “Whatever is wrong with her, let it not be fatal. I do not want my baby to die. My brain is not THAT broken.”

Her colleague smiled at Cameron. “Your daughter is going to be OK.”

“Thank GOD,” said Cameron. She really meant it.

“But she will require some minor surgery.”

Cameron nodded. She was a surgeon. She understood.

“And we’ll need to monitor her. She could wind up missing up to a month of school.”

Cameron tried to look concerned, but she felt her head getting lighter. Crises were the thing that let her breathe, and her daughter was in crisis. Non-fatal crisis: The best kind!

She called her husband and told him the good news. For the most important part—the fact that their daughter was not going to die—she didn’t have to fake a normal reaction.

“Minor surgery, no big deal,” she explained, downplaying how serious it was. And downplaying how happy she was.

But the conversation was cut short because a school bus had crashed nearby. Thirty injured children were being brought in on stretchers. Cameron wasn’t on shift, but she scrubbed in anyway. As she saw the child with the impaled leg, she silently begged his forgiveness. He was having a very bad day.

Cameron was having the best day of her life.