The Butterfly Doctor

Leeanne Fagan, MD

There are days
when people ask how I’m doing and I say, “I’m okay,”
before I even have time to think about the truth.
Not because I enjoy the lie
But for people, the lie is easier to digest than the truth

How do you explain
a body that fights itself every single day?

Or joint pain that lingers
like an unwanted ghost of life past, or fatigue so deep
that sleep no longer fixes it?

The swelling.
The rashes.
The stiffness in the morning.
The ache that follows you into every room
while you adjust the strides you take to hide pain from prying eyes.

Eventually, pain becomes familiar. Not easier.
Just familiar.

You learn how to smile through it. How to laugh at the right moments. How to tell people you’re tired without explaining
that this tired is soul deep.

And somehow,
life still expects you to keep moving
Moving with the ebbs and flows without a stumble. So I do.

I go to work.
I care for patients. I comfort families.

I make decisions in moments where panic has no place.

I save lives
while quietly trying
to hold myself together.

Because there is something strange about being both doctor and patient.

One moment,
I am the physician
standing confidently in the room.

The next,
I am sitting on an exam table, tears in my eyes in a gown, anxious before the visit starts
hoping someone believes that my pain is real.

And most times,
before they hear my credentials, before they hear my experience, before I speak at all,
they see my Black skin first.

I notice the pauses.
The questioning looks.
The subtle disbelief
when I advocate for myself too clearly,
too confidently, too eloquently
too knowledgeably.

As if blackness and intelligence
cannot exist together. As if “drug seeker”
becomes easier to believe than physician.

That kind of hurt
doesn’t leave bruises.
It settles quietly
into places words struggle to reach.

Still,
I persevere.

Through the appointments. The lab work.
The weekly injections. The monthly infusions.
The medications lined across my counter like tiny reminders
that survival has become routine.
And some days
I wonder how many versions of myself this illness has taken from me.
Because lupus changes you. Physically.
Mentally.
Emotionally. Spiritually.
It teaches you
how to grieve yourself while still being alive.

It’s a constant reminder that loneliness can exist even in crowded rooms.

The hardest part is that so much of this battle is invisible.
There is an exhaustion
That comes with proving your suffering is legitimate People see strength
because strength is all I allow them to see.

They do not see
the nights where my body hurts so badly
I lie awake bargaining with morning or to go with the night.

They do not hear the silent screams
hidden beneath composure.

And sometimes,
more than anything, I just want someone to look past the titles, past the strength,
past the survival, past the scars, and simply see me.

The woman I was before lupus.

Before the wolf made his choice Learned my name And decided to stay.

*Used with permission

Dr. Fagan accepts her award for her poem, “The Butterfly Doctor,” from Dr. Balhara, section chair.