May 2014

Laura Foley

We’re sitting knee-to-knee

while her car gets new brakes, mine new fluids.

She discusses hip replacement,

in warrior-like detail, with a friend,

each slice to flesh, how skin is spread

from bone, the pain she’s in, her plans when she gets home,

the miracle of titanium. I’m trying not to hear,

In the Honda Service Area Read More »

Collateral Damage

13 Comments / Stories / Brenda Scearcy

Brenda Scearcy

Dr. Robert’s office felt right to me, with a musical birdsong soundtrack, soft lighting and fresh green tea, and I had my best friend in tow: piece of cake. In this serene atmosphere, I was sure that I’d find out what to do next to finish treating my endometrial cancer.

It’s probably gone now, since my hysterectomy two weeks back, I thought. But let’s play it safe; he’s the gynecological-cancer guru.

Like a general gearing up for combat, Dr. Robert said, “We can beat this. We’ll do a second surgery to remove lymph nodes and omentum–robotically, of course, so your recovery time will be quick. Down the road we’ll definitely do radiation and chemo, and your odds of recurrence will go way down.”

That tone. So assured…

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Long Story

1 Comment / visuals / Alan Blum

Alan Blum

About the artist:

Alan Blum is a Professor and Gerald Leon Wallace MD Endowed Chair in Family Medicine at the University of Alabama School of Medicine in Tuscaloosa. A self-taught artist, he has published three books of his sketches and stories of patients, and his artworks have appeared in more than a dozen medical journals and textbooks. He is a frequent guest speaker at medical schools in courses in the humanities.

About the artwork:

“Aw it’s a long story with me. Spent all my money on my wife when she died. 2 years cancer. Wasn’t able to do anything. Wasn’t able to save her. Spent all my money. All the money I had I spent on her.” Alan Blum recalls: “I vividly remember him, sitting on the edge of the bed at the hospital (when patients could stay there for weeks on end when they couldn’t be sent home alone). He was blind, and he listened faithfully to the radio all day long waiting to hear his name so he could call in and win the jackpot.”

Visuals editor:

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The Pros and Cons of Living with a Terminal Illness

8 Comments / Stories / Ellen Diamond

Ellen Diamond

Before I retired in 2000, I worked in a state agency as a peer counselor, or more formally, an employee assistance program (EAP) coordinator. The “coordinator” part was there because my job description wasn’t actually to do counseling; it was to assess the problem and refer the client for help.

But of course both of those processes involved counseling. We just couldn’t call it that.

In 1986, shortly after I’d begun the job, I was separately visited by two employees with HIV/AIDS. Treatments such as the antiviral drugs used so successfully today were nearly a decade away, and a diagnosis of HIV meant almost certain death. These clients were understandably upset and frightened, but they each made it clear to me that they were still feeling pretty good, though with ups and downs.

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migrating pain

4 Comments / Haiku / Seren Fargo

migrating pain Read More »

Consult

7 Comments / Poems / Daniel Becker

Daniel Becker

Once the tube is out it takes her a minute to turn blue and relax. Another minute to lose her pulse. I learned as a student to feel the difference between the pulse in my fingers and the pulse at the patient’s wrist. Or thought I learned. When you listen for a heart to stop you start to hear heart sounds that might not be there. Like waking up at night thinking you heard something then listening to the dark to be sure, not quite convinced either way. Weak sounds, S1 and S2, valves closing. Slow and slower, regular then irregular, then almost nothing…then who knows? The monitor is off in her room but on at the nursing station. One screen shows every heart in the unit. I don’t want to sign the consult note until the line stays flat. Erratic electrical activity went on for a few minutes is an understatement. She’d be gone for most of the screen then come back for a complex or two then go away again.

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Famine

Leave a Comment / visuals / Frank Baudino

Frank Baudino

About the artist:

Frank Baudino has worked for more than three decades in family medicine, both as a primary-care clinician and as a teacher. “I am an avid believer in volunteerism, and the volunteer experience which affected me most profoundly was my six-month mission in Sudan with Doctors Without Borders. Photography is another of my passions, and I strive to make images that describe the human condition with compassion.” You can see more of his images at frankbaudino.visualserver.com.

About the artwork:

“Following twenty years of civil war, many of the Sudanese in the south were starving. The children were hardest hit. I was in charge of a therapeutic feeding center for children, where I encountered this mother and child as they waited patiently to be screened. Famine bears witness to the conditions of deprivation under which many of the world’s people live; it illustrates the suffering of a mother and her child in an environment that most of us could not imagine, and of which many are unaware.”

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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

Sword

Pumpkin collages

In the Honda Service Area

Collateral Damage

Long Story

The Pros and Cons of Living with a Terminal Illness

migrating pain

Consult

Famine

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

May 2014

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