Me and Betty Jo

I got to meet Betty Jo several weeks ago while I was on call. Sometime in the past Betty Jo had a bit of an accident. She either fell and hit her head, or she was hit in the head, or something; I never really found out. However, unfortunately for her, she developed what is called a subdural hematoma. This is basically bleeding inside your skull, which builds up pressure in the brain and causes headaches, then seizures, then possibly death.
Fortunately for Betty Jo, she went to a hospital. She then had an operation where a hole was drilled into her skull and then the blood clot was sucked out. Betty Jo recovered nicely, went home, and felt better, at least for a while.
Then the headaches came back. Nothing that Betty Jo did made the headaches any better. I assume that Betty Jo considered going back to the hospital, but never got a chance to ask her. What I do know, however, is that Betty Jo got herself a wonderful idea.
It is here that I must interject a few facts about Betty Jo. Betty Jo drinks a little bit, anywhere from a dozen to two dozen cans of beer a day. She also smokes a bit of pot. Oh yes, she also seems to have a small problem with crack cocaine. Perhaps this combination of recreational drug use affected her decision-making ability. Again, I didn't get a chance to ask.
A day or two before I met her, Betty Jo got to thinking back about the last time she had such awful headaches, and how she had a little operation, and how that cleared those headaches right up. That was when Betty Jo had this wonderful idea.
Betty Jo, apparently, went to the kitchen, grabbed herself a knife (butter? steak?) and preceded to bore into her own head in an attempt to cure herself from the headaches. I guess that it seemed like a good idea at the time. Maybe, when the surgeon was explaining the previous surgery, he made it sound like a simple task. Amazingly, this attempt did not succeed.
That's how I got to spend some time with her. I say I never got the chance to ask her any questions because by the time I saw her she was having seizures from either the alcohol withdrawal, the raging infection in her head (seems as though she didn't disinfect that knife), or from any new bleeding she might have caused. She was very far from coherent. We fixed Betty Jo up the best we could, however neurologically she was in much the same condition than when we found her.
I don't know what became of Betty Jo, or if she even survived. I don't know how anyone could think I'll bore into my skull with this knife! could ever be a good decision, no matter how drunk/stoned/coked-up you might be. I don't know what kind of desperation might lead to the consumption of 24 beers a day, much less the other drugs. I can't begin to imagine what her home life was like.
I'd like to think that if Betty Jo recovered she realized that something had to change. Maybe there was a reawakening. Maybe she recognized she got a second chance and made good on it. I'd also like to think that maybe I could be a bit more compassionate towards people like Betty Jo. Nobody in that room, including me, saw her as much more than an annoyance, an interruption to an afternoon where we could all be doing something better with our time. We did our job well, and we saw her safely through. The compassion wasn't there, though. It wasn't there when I told this story to friends. It wasn't there when I typed the first few paragraphs of this post. It isn't here now, really, except that the more I think about Betty Jo the less funny the story is and the more sad it becomes. I guess she deserved better, after all. She sure didn't give it to herself. I don't guess I gave it to her, either.