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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Stories

A Final Concert in the PICU

16 Comments / Stories /

I learned of Alex’s death from an attending physician in UCLA’s division of pediatric hematology-oncology, where I was a second-year resident. We were in the middle of rounds, and upon hearing the news, our team grew somber.

“Alex passed peacefully, surrounded by her family and friends,” the attending told us. “Her family wants to thank the medical team for their care and support.”

Alex had been transferred to our pediatric intensive-care unit (PICU) for acute respiratory failure; she needed sedation, a breathing tube and blood-pressure support.

She was only twenty years old, an undergraduate at an East Coast university.

A Final Concert in the PICU Read More »

Medicine Without a Bottle

20 Comments / Stories /

Editor’s Note: May is National Nurses Month.

When is hope medicine?

In the middle of the night, a woman’s feet quietly whisked across the hospital floor to my bed.

I was seventeen, grieving the death of my mother by suicide, and the loss of our family unit. I was the oldest, doing my best to keep everything and everyone together. My stepfather was absent, spending most of his time drinking at Lex’s Lounge. My younger siblings alternated between staying at home or with our grandparents. By all accounts, it was a confusing chapter in our lives.

Medicine Without a Bottle Read More »

Missing

5 Comments / Stories /

I sit on the cold chair, looking at the floor.

“Yes, I know I’m depressed,” I say, then pause.

“It’s just that my mum went missing seven years ago, and she was never found.”

Another pause, my words falling away, my eyes lowering.

“Since then, I’ve never been the same,” I say. “It’s hard; it still is.”

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My Demography of Grief

35 Comments / Stories /

Sometimes life hands me stories I never could have imagined—yet, once they occur, I realize that I should have expected them all along. This story from my life in an old folks’ home is one such instance.

A little over two years ago, my family placed me in an assisted-living facility for elderly people. (Under my breath, I call it “insisted” living.)

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When Dads Fail

8 Comments / Stories /

My youngest son Camron, was only ten years old—and he was feeling bereft, because he’d lost all connection to his friends. His iPad was on the fritz, less than a year after we’d purchased it.

Camron had yet to dive into the electronic age as his classmates had done. Mostly he played outside with his dogs and cats, fed and chased his goats and bounced on the trampoline with his brother. But during the one hour per day when we permitted him to play games online with his friends, he grinned from ear to ear and laughed nonstop.

Now his iPad had quit working.

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What I Know By Heart

6 Comments / Stories /

Knowing things by heart usually means having them memorized, at your fingertips. Song lyrics, birthdays, phone numbers, the poem I learned in second grade.

These days, for me, knowing by heart is a different exercise. What I know by rote, what I remember, are the dosages of medications, their side effects, and illnesses that can mimic or interact with various behavioral conditions. Hypothyroidism can look like depression; palpitations aren’t always panic attacks. I have medical knowledge, learned in school and accumulated over many years.

What I know by heart, though, is different.

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Turning the Tables

11 Comments / Stories /

My iPhone screams me awake, as it does every morning. Recently this incessant screeching has become less irritating, as I’ve grown more accustomed to the demands that clinical education makes on a third-year medical student. I begin my routine: shower, scrubs, microwaved breakfast sandwich, then out into the dark morning, actually looking forward to my day.

I’ve been on a roll in my new family-medicine rotation, enjoying my time with my supervising doctor and learning quickly under her tutelage. It feels as if it’s coming together—the pages upon pages of textbooks and notes replaced by real patients and newfound responsibilities.

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Recurrence?

11 Comments / Stories /

In bed, at midnight, nearly asleep, I roll from my back to my side. Suddenly, the universe spins. Or is it just my head spinning? If I were standing, I’d fall over.

I lie still, breathing, and waiting for the dizziness to pass.

Why am I so dizzy? I haven’t had any alcohol. I drank a lot of water today. I didn’t even take any of the medications in my cabinet that help me sleep.

Oh shit. A not-unfamiliar thought enters my head: Has the cancer gone to my brain?

Recurrence? Read More »

The First Time

7 Comments / Stories /

“KCE 357 to the Jerico Fire Department,” says the dispatch radio at our community’s volunteer fire department. I volunteer here as both an emergency medical technician (EMT) and a chaplain; I’m also the full-time pastor of an Episcopal congregation.

“Ambulance needed at 45 Lilac Court for the unresponsive person, possible cardiac arrest.”

This is a high-priority call, albeit one that is common in our small town.

I hop into my car, equipped with an orange nylon “jump kit” of medical supplies, and head for 45 Lilac Court, ready to begin treating the patient before the fire-department ambulance arrives.

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What If…?

5 Comments / Stories /

During my first two years of medical school, the service-learning program I most enjoyed was Sickle Cell Superheroes. This program matches medical students with teenagers (or “kiddos,” as I like to call them) who are transitioning from pediatric to adult hematology for management of their sickle-cell disease.

My kiddo was Harry, and I absolutely adored him.

What If…? Read More »

“I Know You Don’t Want to Be Here…”

10 Comments / Stories /

It’s been an interesting year. Eight months after having a large kidney stone removed, I was diagnosed with very early stage cancer—small, low grade, etc. The treatment (surgery) would very likely cure the cancer. The specter of cancer meant that I found this surgery physically easier, but emotionally much harder.

The aftermath of the surgery was interesting in unexpected ways, too.

Six months after surgery, at one of my periodic follow-up visits, I was sitting awkwardly at the end of the exam table, dressed in the standard patient gown and sheet, and waiting to see Becky, the nurse practitioner I’d been assigned to that day.

“I Know You Don’t Want to Be Here…” Read More »

Playing the Odds

21 Comments / Stories /

“The odds of anything going sideways are less than one in a hundred,” the cardiologist said.

I was only half listening—too busy signing the papers indemnifying the Medical Colossus against any undue outcomes from my pending cardiac catheterization and probable stent placement.

“Less than one in a hundred,” he repeated.

No problem, I thought.

Playing the Odds Read More »

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