Sharing personal experiences of giving and receiving health care
Turning the Tables
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.
Recurrence?
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?
The First Time
“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.
More Voices
Every month readers tell their stories — in 40 to 400 words — on a different healthcare theme.
November 2021
October 2021
September 2021
New Voices
Stories by those whose faces and perspectives are underrepresented in media and in the health professions.
The Distance Between
I was in secondary school in Nigeria when I first noticed the lesion on Uncle Eze’s lip. Like many men of his age in Lagos, he’d picked up smoking in the 1980s, when foreign cigarette companies flooded our markets with glossy advertisements and promises of sophistication. The habit stuck, even as the glamour faded. The streets of Lagos were dotted with tobacco vendors then, selling single sticks to businessmen who’d made cigarettes part of their daily routine.
“It’s nothing,” he said, when I pointed to the growing sore. In those days, seeing a dermatologist meant traveling to one of the
“Teach to Fish for Tomorrow”
It’s a typical Friday night in New Orleans. The streets are brimming with people from all over the world looking for a night of fun in the Big Easy.
I check the time: 5:45 pm. It’s a little more than a mile from my apartment to Ozanam Inn, a shelter for the unhoused where I work as the coordinator for the student-run Tulane Tuberculosis Screening Clinic Program. My shift tonight runs from 6:00-8:00 pm.
A Different Kind of Different
Editor’s Note: This piece was a finalist in the Pulse writing contest, “On Being Different.”
Every parent likes to think their child is one in a million. What if you’re the parent of an individual who is more like one in 326 million?
Society in general has started to be more cognizant of disabilities—some disabilities more than others. For instance, Down syndrome awareness and acceptance has excelled in the past several years, and schools have made efforts to teach inclusion and acceptance of students with special needs.
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Poems
Physical Therapy
This morning a volcano
turned back into a neck,
simply a neck.
Decades after a tiny
muscle knot had wandered
or was pushed up
under the skull’s tight base,
this morning it emerged,
brimming with thanks.
Mementos
When you were days from
Dying
In that hospital bed
A woman came to talk to me
I knew that drill
I recognized the soft approach
Sweeping the Floor
The plants that curve into the bay window in the parlor
Drop their leaves to the scuffed wooden floor of this old house
When they no longer hold life.
There they dry and crumble
Scattering dust and debris across the soft pine,
Clinging to my socks
As I stretch to open the shade
And let in the morning sun.