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

Our Shared Journey

6 Comments / Stories /

Editor’s Note: This piece was awarded an honorable mention in the Pulse writing contest, “On Being Different.”

It took a terrifying and life-changing experience of being different for me to realize a fundamental truth: I’m the same as everyone else.

This truth has redefined my goals and reshaped the way I practice medicine.

At age twenty-nine, during my third and final year of internal-medicine residency, I received a diagnosis of a rare and malignant brain cancer called anaplastic astrocytoma. Quite suddenly, I was different.

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ICU Surprise!

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It was 7:15 on a Tuesday morning. What kind of a Tuesday morning, I could not say. How would I know? There are no windows on 8 North, the adolescent ward at Bellevue Hospital, where I was spending my first month as an intern. There could have been a hurricane outside for all I knew.

What I did know was that in about fifteen minutes a pack of fresh, smiling faces would be arriving, and one of them would bring me breakfast: a toasted bagel with cream cheese and coffee. The long night (or should I say nightmare) was ending, and I could look forward to an easy eight remaining hours of work and then sleep, blissful sleep.

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A Puzzling Impulse

5 Comments / Stories /

Editor’s Note: This piece was awarded an honorable mention in the Pulse writing contest, “On Being Different.”

My mother has always advised me that it is good to be “different.” She herself, growing up, wanted to be different in both her personality and her fashion. But her wish to be unique is not something I’ve inherited.

Beginning in elementary school, the last thing I wanted was to be different from my school friends—in fact, I wanted to be them. This made things difficult, as I was the only brown person in my primarily white friend group.

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A Time to Die?

13 Comments / Stories /

I’ve always liked this hospital. It’s small, just two stories, with natural light flooding through the rain-cleansed windows.

My patient Ruby is on the ground-level medical ward. The ward’s Maori name, Muiriwai, means “confluent point of two streams.” Each ward has a Maori name and four beds. There are no private rooms in this public hospital.

Ruby is lucky to have a bed near the window.

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My Invisible Illness

11 Comments / Stories /

Growing up, I was a healthy child. I only went to the doctor for check-ups, vaccinations and school forms.

So when, at age fourteen, I woke in the middle of the night in excruciating pain and crawled into my parents’ bedroom to wake them to take me to the emergency room, I wasn’t prepared for what awaited on the other side of those sliding glass doors.

My experience was like a medical TV-show montage—bright lights, beeping monitors, medical professionals hovering over me and talking incomprehensible jargon, soft cries from patients in surrounding rooms, concerned looks on my parents’ faces.

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Assistant Head Wrapper

18 Comments / Stories /

Editor’s Note: This piece was awarded an honorable mention in the Pulse writing contest, “On Being Different.”

I’m an antique. I started working as a junior copywriter at Time in 1972. I was a token Jew, a token hippie and a token “female professional” among hordes of perky typists and preppy males. The executives wore Cartier cufflinks engraved with initials and numbers, like GSW III or CMJ IV. My bosses were George the Third and Christopher the Fourth, while I was J, the only.

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A Phony Heterosexual

9 Comments / Stories /

In my first year as a premedical student at the University of Rochester, I began working as an EMT (emergency medical technician).

I enjoyed the work, but my interactions with patients were necessarily fast-paced and fleeting. In September of my senior year, I explored a different side of medicine by volunteering at a local hospice house; there, engaging with patients and hearing their stories over time was a critical element of care.

Among the hospice patients, I connected especially to Jackson, a man in his sixties. Jackson’s voice, interests and punk style reminded me of my own grandfather, who had passed away just a year earlier.

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The Quest of a Lifetime

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Editor’s Note: This piece was awarded an honorable mention in the Pulse writing contest, “On Being Different.”

From a young age, we’re encouraged to stand out—to be who we truly are and to be proud of that person. We strive to understand both our strengths and our weaknesses. In doing so, we’re driven to move forward, knowing we’re doing our best. But sometimes we get stuck in a rut and can’t find our way. That’s where my story begins.

In the mid-Seventies, at age sixteen or seventeen, I was diagnosed with a genetic disorder called Klinefelter syndrome. There were no computers or internet, which meant no easy access to medical knowledge. Living in rural Northern Michigan complicated matters further. Our small town had no medical specialists, and medical journals at the library became my sole source of information.

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Burnt

13 Comments / Stories /

You never forget the smell of charred human flesh. It permeates your skin, your hair, your nose and your mind. It never leaves. You may try to describe it, but there is no equivalent. Not barbecue, not melted plastic, not wood; the smell of the flesh of a once-living human being stands on its own. Even after thirty years, my mind holds the smell in its broken places.

They said it was a Molotov cocktail thrown into the house because of a drug deal gone bad. The man who was the target jumped out a window and left his girlfriend and children behind. The fire consumed everything.

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Silenced

29 Comments / Stories /

Editor’s Note: This piece was awarded an honorable mention in the Pulse writing contest, “On Being Different.”

As a maternal/fetal medicine specialist for twenty-four years, I’d always felt that speaking to my patients, peers and the hospital staff was one of my God-given talents. I’m very good at giving bad news to expectant parents about their fetal diagnosis—or I used to be.

All of that changed six years ago, when I had a thyroidectomy for thyroid cancer. During the surgery, both of my recurrent laryngeal nerves were paralyzed, and so both of my vocal cords are paralyzed.

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Under the Microscope

10 Comments / Stories /

I was walking into my kitchen with an armful of groceries when my cell phone rang. It took a second to register the caller’s name: Dr. James. The surgeon I’d met two weeks earlier.

I wasn’t expecting this call. My biopsy had occurred only a few days ago, and I’d been told that, because of the Christmas holiday, the results would be delayed.

Why is she calling?

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None of My Mom Friends Are Dying

26 Comments / Stories /

Editor’s Note: This piece was awarded an honorable mention in the Pulse writing contest, “On Being Different.”

I’m squarely in the middle of my friends, in terms of when we became “mom friends.” However, one aspect sets me apart: None of my mom friends are dying.

None had excruciating pain during pregnancy, unrelenting constipation or unexplained blood in their stool. None went septic five days postpartum or were ultimately diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer with liver, lung and peritoneal metastases. None are parenting a two-year-old, knowing that they might not see him turn three.

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