October 2023
Christmas at My Place
I turned back to look at him only once, that insane parody of Jesus on the rood, his face turned away in death, arms stretched wide, a small white towel draped over his manhood. I stood there in the E.R. covered in the blood he’d spray-painted me with as he lay dying from a gunshot wound to the chest. Blood spray in my hair, my eyelashes, on my lips and in my mouth. My new white shoes with the stylish aerating holes, also bore the shocking red of a life too soon ended.
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A Weird Fit for Medicine
Editor’s Note: This piece was awarded an honorable mention in the Pulse writing contest, “On Being Different.”
Whenever the most recent piece of anti-LGBTQ legislation passes, the silence is a familiar song.
In November of 2022, we had the Club Q shooting in Colorado Springs—soon to be followed by a nonstop onslaught of legislative attacks on the LGBTQ communities’ right to exist. After each one, the silence blared.
I remember walking into work the day after the Club Q shooting. As I met my co-residents for 6:00 am patient sign-out, I felt weighed down, needing to will myself to focus. I was greeted with the usual smiles, heard the usual laughter, listened to the usual small talk.
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BRCA1
“Am I going to die?”
Little sister, in recovery, hair splayed behind her like wings,
eyes round.
“No,” I say, “they’ll fix it.”
Twelve years ago.
She was 47, then.
Not Such a Tough Call
Earlier this year, my beloved family practice doctor retired. Over many years, I had had ample opportunity to appreciate his diagnostic skill, his professionalism and his kindness. Moreover, I felt I could always trust that he would respect my wishes. I had a real partner in my health care.
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Finding Freedom in Difference
Editor’s Note: This piece was awarded third place in the Pulse writing contest, “On Being Different.”
It was 3:00 am on my third night shift out of five, in a busy inner-city hospital in Sydney.
Having just reviewed six suicidal patients back to back, I felt tired and frustrated.
If I have to see another suicidal patient tonight…Why don’t they go and be suicidal somewhere else? I wondered wearily, then felt ashamed at the adversarial division I’d created: patient vs. doctor, them against me.
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Rising to the Occasion
Ma lived a blessed life: more than six decades of marriage, two professionally successful children (a physician and a teacher), and three wonderful grandchildren. Yet, these gifts mattered less to her than her forty years working in a baby/children’s store. When health issues forced her to retire at age eighty-two, she lost her heart and her spirit. Ma spent the days in her old recliner, wearing only a tattered white T-shirt and equally torn white underwear. She only got up to use the bathroom and wander the halls of her apartment building at night.
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October More Voices: Tough Calls
Dear Pulse readers:
When I was about twenty years old and living in New York, I wandered into a men’s clothing store on Canal Street. There, an army jacket caught my eye. I liked it right away. It was stylish–in a counterculture-rebel sort of way–and I decided to try it on.
It fit perfectly.
The only problem was, it cost more than I wanted to spend.
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