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

November 2024

Overcoming a Stammer

Editor’s Note: This piece was a finalist in the Pulse writing contest, “On Being Different.”

Teary-eyed and a bit shaken, I hovered outside the room of our next patient, Ms. Robinson. She needed a lumbar puncture, and I was there as a medical student on rotation to observe the inpatient neurology team carry out the procedure.

Moments earlier, out here in the hallway, I’d sputtered through a case presentation to the open displeasure of my attending physician. I hadn’t been sure how my lifelong stammer would influence my experience on the wards; now I found out.

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I Just Wasn’t Comfortable

Laurie Donohue, MD, a longstanding colleague of mine, died October 24, 2024. We were a year apart in family medicine residency, both practicing at Brown Square Health Center, an FQHC (Federally Qualified Health Center) in Rochester, New York. We worked together for years, maintaining adjacent clinical practices. For several years we shared an office and often bounced clinical situations off each other, or shared challenges and support. Both of us had dedicated patient panels, and we seldom saw each other’s patients. I loved working with Laurie; her calm and steady presence balanced me in so many ways.

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We Are Here

We are here.
At the foot of your bed,
I warm your limp feet in my hands.

A daughter cleans your mouth, a thirsty anemone.
Your only action is its eager suckle
of the sponge. My sister’s
offering is careful, sparse—
your retiring body can take little but air.

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Housebound

I’ve always enjoyed being around people, both at work and with friends. I also liked daily biking and sailing off and on. Then, in 1990, a neuroimmune illness hit me out of the blue. Since that time, the disease has kept me almost completely housebound and able to tolerate only brief personal contacts.

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Grief Without Closure

I just returned from the cemetery. It was 10 years ago today—November 1—that my beloved father died in my arms. The sun has daily risen and set during this past decade; I have gone about my business of reading, attending theatrical productions, napping, and meeting with friends. My children and I have gotten closer. But there is a hole in my soul from which I will never recover. Until I take my last breath, I will miss, mourn, celebrate, and love my father.

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November More Voices: Recovering

Dear readers,

I’m still recovering from my diagnosis of type 1 diabetes forty years ago. The recovery involves daily injections of insulin, a continuous glucose monitor affixed to my upper arm and a hovering awareness of where my blood sugar is at any moment and which way it’s headed.

Recovering isn’t just about getting over an operation or a brief illness, although life does offer us some quick recoveries: At age five I got over my tonsillectomy in a week or two; and, luckily for me, my bout of COVID last winter left no lasting effects.

November More Voices: Recovering Read More »

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