January 2010

Confessions of a 75-Year-Old Drug Addict

Arlene Silverman

The physician, a slim, young man with a shaved head and intense, dark eyes, reaches out to shake hands. I fumble to extend one hand while the other clutches a questionnaire that I haven’t finished filling out.

“That’s okay,” Dr. Gordon says. “You can finish later.”

He can tell that I’m nervous, but seems to understand. He knows that I’ve had to sign in at a window surrounded by other patients, many younger than my own children. Some of them look dazed; others have dozed off. Still others, alert, look as if they’d just come from their job at the bank.

Me? I walk with a cane. My clothes have been carefully chosen to look presentable. I’ve come through a door labeled “Chemical Dependency Clinic” in small, discreet letters. If you hadn’t been looking for the sign, you’d have missed it. The building has no street-level windows and is in a neighborhood that could kindly be called “transitional,” rundown at its core but reluctantly yielding to gentrification.

I am seventy-five years old, and I have come to Dr. Gordon because I’ve become addicted to drugs.

While he scrolls through my

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May I Have Your Attention, Please?

Leave a Comment / Stories / Adam Phillip Stern

Adam Phillip Stern

Some sentences should never be interrupted.

“We have the results of your HIV test,” the attending physician had begun. But fate interrupted with a seemingly endless loudspeaker announcement:

“May I have your attention, please? Would the following patients please report to the nurse’s station for morning medications….”

Nothing about Benjamin’s story was ordinary. He had been voluntarily admitted to an inpatient psychiatry unit after reporting many symptoms of depression–extreme somnolence, fatigue, thirty-pound weight loss with poor appetite, diffuse pain, decreased energy and joylessness for about three months.

Benjamin was charming, smart and eager to follow medical advice. As a relatively inexperienced medical student, I found interviewing him a refreshing change of pace from my difficult interactions with the poorly groomed individuals who paced the halls repeating nonsensical phrases and questions over and over again. Benjamin always peppered our talks with comments about current events and informed questions about his care. He could often be seen reading the newspaper or interacting with other patients or staff in a way that made me wonder whether he really belonged there.

Benjamin’s life story was as engaging as his demeanor. He had worked

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Reflections From a Senior Citizen

Leave a Comment / Poems / Dorothy Kligerman

I used to talk of fun and games

Now I talk of aches and pains.
I used to paint the town bright red
Now at nine I am in bed.

I used to dream of lovers bold.
Now if truth be told
The only men who interest me
Are those with a medical degree.

“Why,” you ask, “have they such clout?”
Well–we have so much to talk about:
There’s my arthritis and stenosis,
Hypertension, scoliosis.

In a cozy room, alone, we chat.
We never have a lover’s spat.
So keep your handsome Romeos
I’ll always take those medicos!

About the poet:

I am ninety-five years old, widowed, with three married children, four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. My first published work appeared in February, 1931, in The Record Book of my graduating class of Simon Gratz High School in Philadelphia. It was not until the 1980s that my work appeared in print again. I was a reporter for the Mt. Airy Express, writing on assignment twice monthly and actually being paid! The paper folded at the end of that decade. Again there was a hiatus,

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fostering the humanistic practice of medicine publishing personal accounts of illness and healing encouraging health care advocacy

fostering the humanistic practice of medicine publishing personal accounts of illness and healing encouraging health care advocacy

Confessions of a 75-Year-Old Drug Addict

May I Have Your Attention, Please?

Reflections From a Senior Citizen

Pulse Readers’ Hopes and Wishes for the New Year

fostering the humanistic practice of medicine publishing personal accounts of illness and healing encouraging health care advocacy

fostering the humanistic practice of medicine publishing personal accounts of illness and healing encouraging health care advocacy

January 2010

Medecins sans frontieres — Liberia, 2003

Confessions of a 75-Year-Old Drug Addict

May I Have Your Attention, Please?

Reflections From a Senior Citizen

Pulse Readers’ Hopes and Wishes for the New Year

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