Language Failure

I used the word ‘zombie’ in a staff meeting today. I didn’t say it as a joke, and I didn’t say it to be provocative. I said it because we were discussing the patients in Ward 4 and I realized we don’t have another word in the English language that fits. No one laughed. No one even corrected me. The room just stayed silent for a long, heavy minute. We’ve spent months dancing around the term, using clinical gibberish to protect our professional dignity, but that dignity is gone now. We are treating the undead, and admitting it is the only honest thing we’ve done all week.