While working as a research assistant on a traumatic brain injury study, Devine Joyce struggles with feelings of depression, but an experience with a patient changes her outlook.

Devine Joyce is fascinated by all things related to the brain, not unlike zombies. She received her BSc in Biology at the University of British Columbia. She aspires to guide people through their journey of self-discovery, self-love, and to become better communicators. She loves to spend her free time finding the best places to get tacos and enjoys being upside down (ask her what this means). 

This story originally aired on December 28, 2018 in an episode titled “Carpe Diem.”

Story Transcript

I worked as a research assistant on a traumatic brain injury study where we collected data from patients who sustained a head injury.  So patients would come in to the hospital to the emergency department for a variety of things, like fishbone stuck in throat or shortness of breath or even toe fractures.  They would even come for bigger traumas, like car accidents, and my job was to enroll patients who sustained a head injury, order their blood to be drawn and facilitate neurocognitive assessments. 

The first couple of months I really pushed myself to get these enrollments.  I pushed myself hard.  I wanted to show that I was capable and that I was good at my job.  However, at the same time, I was becoming increasingly aware of how unhappy I was with myself.  Deeply unhappy with who I was, what I looked like and where I was heading in life. 

So at work I was outgoing.  I was enrolling patients.  But outside of work I really didn’t find any happiness from simple things in life, like sipping on a nice warm coffee or walks around the park or listening and dancing to my reggaeton music.  Oftentimes when I would have dinner with my friends, I would sit down and completely zone out and have to be brought back to the conversation by my friends furiously waving at my face. 

So I started retreating from my friends and family.  I would come home after work every day, bury myself underneath a pile of blankets and just scroll through my social media, mindlessly scrolling, which would make me feel even worse.  I started bingeing unhealthy food.  I wasn’t exercising, I wasn’t working out.  And I think it was a combination of the stress of having a new job, of transitioning into this new job and being so unhappy with how I looked as well as my unhealthy lifestyle that overall led to the dissatisfaction in my life. 

Three months into the job there was this long week of not having enrolled a single patient into our study so I was taking it quite hard.  There was a long week of not enrolling anybody simply because it was a slow week in the ER, which was obviously a good thing.  Less people were hurting themselves.  Less people were getting into accidents.  But this added an extra pressure onto myself because I wanted to enroll patients that were eligible. 

That Saturday morning I was working by myself and an ICU patient comes into the hospital.  He was eligible for our study and I read his chart.  This patient was a young male in his early 20s.  He had been on a building watching the sunrise when he fell off the building and sustained a severe traumatic brain injury with multiple fractures and multiple brain bleeds.  He was sent to the ER and was quickly moved to the ICU for better monitoring. 

He was unconscious so I knew I had to talk to the family in order to get consent for a blood draw, because although I wouldn’t be able to do any of the assessments with them, his blood would still be invaluable to our study.  But I couldn’t bring myself to approach this patient’s family because I was scared and I was terrified and I just couldn’t bear to add on to the burdens that they had already. 

So I waited for my co-worker to come, because there's safety in numbers, and we went up to his room together.  The curtain to his room was partly drawn.  There was a sign that said ‘Respect this Space’ laminated onto the curtain.  At this point, I knew that the patient was in comfort care and the prognosis wasn’t looking so good. 

I don't remember what he looked like.  I don't remember his hair color.  I don't remember the shape of his eyes, his nose, his mouth.  I can’t remember any of that.  But I do remember the tube coming out of his mouth that allowed him to breathe and I remember more tubes and IVs snaking across his body, a monitor in the corner beep-beep beeping.  His head was bandaged and he was wearing a collar for stability. 

We met his family that was surrounding his bed.  I can tell you it was one of the most heartbreaking things I've ever had to experience.  We found out that this patient was brain dead and was getting prepared for organ donation.  I'll never forget the stifling sadness that surrounded that room.  It was so thick.  I felt like I was suffocating and I couldn’t breathe. 

And so I stood there scared, clutching at my blood kit and clutching at my clipboard, shaking while my co-worker was the one who was able to consent for a blood draw.  Afterwards, we went down to our office, collapsed in our chairs and just cried. 

Now, I have dealt with death before with my uncle and my grandpa but their deaths didn’t affect me as much as this one did.  I'd always associated death with grief and sadness sorrow, but there's something more powerful about this.  That was unconditional love that was coming from this patient’s family, love that looked like your dad writing you a poem or love that looked like someone rolling in a TV so you could experience hockey one last time with your sister.  And love that looked like your son’s heart, kidneys, liver giving life to other people.  I was completely thrown off by this experience for an entire month.  My head space was completely jumbled and I just couldn’t think properly.  I was grieving for someone I didn’t even know. 

My short time with this family was enough to propel my journey for self love and self discovery because this patient was so young and I could see myself in him.  He had his entire life ahead of him until one day he didn’t.  It really made me think about how fleeting life is and how I didn’t want to continue living the rest of my life unhappy with myself. 

So I started bettering myself.  I'd come home every day after work, bury myself underneath a pile of blankets and watch TED talks, TED talks on how to love yourself, how to forgive yourself, how to be happy, the person you should really be marrying, and that person is you.  I would oftentimes sit in my bed watching these TED talks.  I'd watch these TED talks and I'd just start tearing up because some of the things that they were saying were really hitting home. 

I'd read self-help books, like You Are Here where the main themes were focusing on the present moment and enjoying who you're with and the people that you're with.  And I would write in my journals until ink ran out, wake up every morning, look myself in the mirror and give myself a pep talk and say, “You got this today.” 

And I started learning more about what was important for me, my needs and my values, and one of my needs that was actually really important to me was belonging.  I realized I could fulfill this by doing a bunch of different things, like volunteering, trying out new dance classes.  And in this process of learning about myself, I started to love myself and I started to live again.  One day I woke up, went outside, it was morning time 6:00 a.m., and I watched the sunrise, a soft pink purple hue painted across the sky.  I smiled for the first time in a long time because I was finally happy.  Thank you.