I have chest pain again. Chest pain and dizziness and shortness of breath. So I am in the ER for the dozenth time over the past few years.
And because no one ever knows what’s going on (because I’m a woman of a certain age and all the tests are negative), we all assume it’s just one of those things. It will go away. Or it won’t.
“But don’t hesitate to come in when you have the symptoms again.”
Tears Aren’t Always Bad News Read More »
First the catheter, slimmest filament,
slid in by expert hands
The next needle delivers
a pillowy somnolence
your russet-furred rabbit face falling
gently into my cradling palm
Then the final dose,
doctor calculated for your now boney, bunny frame
A nineteen-year-old receives a diagnosis that eventually reveals her best self.
Finding the Upside Read More »
Amanda was the first friend I made at Royal West Academy, in Montreal. When I walked into art class as a new tenth-grade student, I scanned the room in quiet panic, noticing how everyone was already grouped together. Then I locked eyes with Amanda—the only other Asian girl in a sea of white students. She flashed me a grin, and I immediately made my way toward her.
We quickly became close friends. Over the next two years, we sat together in every class, laughing often. We stayed up late for FaceTime study sessions that often veered off topic.
Today, while sitting with my kids in a cafe at a busy intersection, I saw a man stick his arm out of a car window. I spotted a metallic glint in the afternoon sun. I couldn’t see his face due to the glare through the cafe window. But I could see him point his arm and hold it horizontally in my direction.
I flinched. I went into survival mode. I told my kids calmly but firmly to move their chairs away from the window immediately. When they asked why, as they noisily scraped their wooden chair legs against the polished linoleum, I lowered my voice and said, “There’s a man with a gun at the stop light. It’s pointed at the restaurant.”
Of a Gun and a Cigarette Read More »
He answers the door wearing only a button-down shirt and incontinence briefs, no pants, paper towels in one hand, his walker out of reach on the other side of his assisted-living apartment.
“Who are you?” His brow crinkles as his dark eyes bore into me, vacant yet suspicious.
“We met here last month,” I say. I reintroduce myself as his new primary care provider and remind him that he was referred to me by his longtime, beloved clinic-based doctor for home-based primary care.
I’ve started asking women about their grief. Today, I was taking a medical history from a colleague, and she told me she had lost twin girls. They were stillborn. I asked her to tell me how it happened.
It was one sad accident after another. She couldn’t feel her babies moving at 38 weeks and then went into labor. She’d been told that she would have an elective C-section at 36 weeks, but for some reason her caregivers changed their minds. By the time she was in the labor and delivery ward, the babies didn’t have a heartbeat.
Grief Around Every Corner Read More »
In my crowded triage room, I hear the emergency-room physician say, “Trauma blood, STAT!”
I have been rushed to the ER after throwing up liters of blood at home. I have GI bleeding.
I’m tipped back on the gurney, head lower than my limbs, with my mean arterial pressure in the low mid-60s. Paddles are ready; transfusion begins.
Two days later, I undergo an endoscopy. Is it ulcers? Something else?
Three Weeks in December Read More »
What’s it like when people insist on putting you in a box, but aren’t sure which one to put you in?
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