2020 Archives - Page 11 of 12

Gratitude and Generosity

Joseph Fennelly February 17, 2020 No Comments

After fifty-six years of practicing primary internal medicine, I retired in my ninetieth year. The goodbyes and well wishes were only the tip of an iceberg in which my patients and I shared the journey of their illnesses together, and I was honored to serve as a guide in their odyssey.

I Used to Be Happy about My Birthday

Lynn O'Donnell February 15, 2020 1 Comment

My mother was forty-nine when she died of primary pulmonary hypertension. She was a non-smoker and a non-drinker, but she had a tremendous amount of stress in her life. After being told she could not have a management job because she was a woman, she sued her employer for discrimination. These were the days of the “women’s liberation movement.”

My mother won her lawsuit, but she died before it was settled. I blame the stress of the lawsuit on her illness and untimely death.

Medical Manners

Deborah Levin February 7, 2020 No Comments

“So, how much do you love the new knee I gave you?” he asked as he walked into the exam room. I stared at the doctor in disbelief. This was his introduction at my first post-op visit after knee replacement surgery? My husband had been an orthopedic surgeon himself, and I’m quite sure that, in his thirty years of practice, he never said that to a patient.

A Night at the Symphony

Jennifer Downs February 4, 2020 1 Comment

The light from the stage spilled out over the audience and illuminated the faces of my companions. I was there with my Dad, 94, and his friend of many years Dilys, 93. We were settling in after intermission. As the music started, I could feel each of them sit up a little straighter, alert to the familiar Mozart. I wondered how many times each had heard this symphony. I glanced at the two of them, their faces rapt in full attention. Their eyes gleamed and each of them smiled slightly. Bliss! I felt a rush of happiness to be there with them and relaxed into the music.

Old People

Joan Greland-Goldstein February 2, 2020 1 Comment

I grew up hating old people. As a young child, I was engulfed in a sea of gray hair and wrinkles and had no playmates. Mama was forty-one when I was born; Daddy was forty-five. My siblings and cousins were older than me by at least eleven years. None of our neighbors had children. The people we visited were all in my parents’ age group or older.

Accepting the Inevitable

Ronna L. Edelstein February 1, 2020 1 Comment

Simon and Garfunkel said it best: “How terribly strange to be seventy.” When I turned seventy in 2017, I felt old for the first time in my life. Nothing external changed except for a few more wrinkles and gray hairs; I kept my part-time teaching job, continued to usher at theatres, and kept up my reading marathon. However, internally, I felt mortal; most of the chapters in my life have ended, and only a few chapters and the epilogue remain.

An Editor’s Invitation: Aging

Paul Gross February 1, 2020 No Comments

It’s recently come to my attention that I am aging.

I used to find it easy to ignore this particular phenomenon, but as the decades have passed, as my two daughters have now reached their mid- and late-twenties, and as my morning body becomes increasingly creaky, I find this reality staring me in the face–sometimes literally, as I look in the mirror.

The most disconcerting aspect of this aging business: the vanishing names.

“You Need to Stop Drinking”

Linda Lundeen January 31, 2020 No Comments

Early in my family medicine residency, I admitted a woman to the hospital for complications of alcoholism. She was young. She didn’t look like a chronic alcoholic. She continued to work. Even her fingernails were polished. Yet she had alcoholic pancreatitis. She was in severe abdominal pain and was vomiting uncontrollably. As the level of alcohol in her body dropped, she started to shake, indicating withdrawal. We admitted her for intravenous hydration and detoxification from alcohol.

I felt drawn to her; she was someone who, like me, had made wrong choices. I wanted to do my best for her. Her physical symptoms improved quickly; she would only be in the hospital for a few days. Her real problem was the alcoholism itself. She acknowledged that. She was ready to change her life.

Protea caffra

Joe Amaral January 15, 2020 No Comments

Beverly called the ambulance because she couldn’t walk anymore. Her feet were edematous after ten days of radiation treatment for metastatic lung cancer, and her heart was slowly overfilling with fluid, backlogging into her body. She was stoically resigned to her pain and newfound infirmity, but she kept a wry sense of humor, cracking jokes about being waited upon and the “magic carpet ride” sling we lifted her onto.

During transport to the hospital, Beverly told me she grew protea: pale red, pink and cream-colored flowers native to South Africa. Her family sells them at local farmer’s markets in bouquets. When I inquired further, Beverly perked up and gave me the rundown:

Learning to Let Go

Fernando Camacho January 4, 2020 1 Comment

Every New Year, many resolutions come to mind to try to guide me and provide focus for the year ahead. Now, as I approach the pre-retirement period of my life, I have chosen to learn and relearn how to let go.

I realize that I have to let go of my fantasies, let go of my fears, let go of so many things that seem essential in the moment yet represent nothing more than attachments to the past.

The Devotion of a New Nurse

Emily Marantz January 3, 2020 No Comments

I can tell you stories about my day, about the mundane miracles that transpire in the time-warped world of this hospital birthing center, but words will hardly convey what it is like–for me–to be a new labor and delivery nurse. Every time I meet a patient and ask them about themselves, I am reminded that I am only hearing bits of the whole story of their life, that I will never really know what life is like for anyone else, and that no one will know (or needs to know) what it is like for me. This seems lonely at first but is actually deeply intimate.

Worrier to Warrior

Ronna L. Edelstein January 2, 2020 2 Comments

I am a worrier. I worry about real and imaginary things, about significant issues and minor ones. My goal for 2020 is to stop being a worrier and instead become a warrior.

I want to embrace each day with courage, not with angst. Perhaps if I do, I will no longer suffer from 24/7 headaches that challenge my ability to concentrate for any extended period of time. Maybe I will stop losing myself in reruns of Law and Order: SVU and instead engage in real life adventures–solo or with friends–at a museum, theater, or restaurant.

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2020