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

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

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Six Sutures

She did not slice the bandage snugged about the numb toe
but tickled an end open to begin the unwinding. She
unwound the gauze slowly as she turned her head
to see where the cloth stuck to itself and how to cut it.

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Vinegar and Good Wood

You often speak to my brother from the bottle
of apple-cider vinegar
fermented for years but saved just in case
in the back of his spice cabinet.
You can tell him how to make your banana bread
and your hamburger gravy
till they are

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Amor Fati

Fortunate to have a heavy coat
and camp pants in the nightlong cold,
we find you face down in a field

rewarming like a lizard
near dead of an overdose—
leaves of grass imprinted
on your body catatonic,

eyes swollen from allergens.
All you

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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

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Alive

40 years ago
the night before Halloween
they let me into the frigid room

where they were keeping you
deeply sedated, your skin blue
and clammy, barely alive after

having trouble bringing you back,
with a wicked incision stitched
from collarbone to near navel

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Neighbor

I first notice the fog, unexpected
on the inside of a windshield,
a question mark
along the run-on sentence of parked cars, and,
with a snap, you are there,
wrapped in a bag in the back
seat with parking patrol on the prowl,

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Doctor Becomes Patient

The diagnosis is here
I knew it was coming
But did not think it would arrive this soon
“You’re very young to have it” the doctor said
My bones brittle, already
At age 50
I feel fragile

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Chronic Illness

He’s sick again.

It’s a major production
getting him to the doctor’s office.
Dressing a paraplegic,
loading the wheelchair,
strapping it down in the van.

Leaving an hour early, just in case.
Always prepared,
I take along a packed bag,
half for him,

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Middle-aged Daughter

(after Susan Vespoli)

I like to think she stopped searching
for the next hobby, the next career,
the next diagnosis.

That she’s thriving at work and has given up
smoking. I like to think she completes
her interrupted orthodontics

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Often Described As

the most terrible pain known to man,
trigeminal neuralgia
ricochets around my face, pulsing
electric-shocks. My doctor advises

cutting the nerve in my cheek, the only hope
of stopping the torture. He mentions
some patients consider
suicide. My husband has just revealed

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Harvest

In early morning appointments,
the doctor’s coat reeks of cigarettes
as he moves closer,
says “Scoot down,”
inserts the probe.

They want me to want my eggs
in case the treatment takes them—
to hold fast to the dream of a child
with

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