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Latest Voices
Diagnosis
After the bone marrow biopsy, but before all results are in, when you have some strength and an appetite, I make your favorites—turkeyburgers, coleslaw, baked beans. You stand in the doorway, eyes on me, just as you did when you were a child, waiting for whatever I’d create. Abracadabra, I’d say, presenting buttered French toast or a plate of still-warm chocolate chip cookies. You ate the cookies and cried for your addict parents who’d left you with me, who’d left a wound I couldn’t soothe.
I was the aunt who tried to replace them. But you
No Mud, No Lotus
A doctor rarely imagines becoming a victim of workplace violence leading to chronic pain. I was a young, idealistic geriatrician fresh out of my training when I began working in a memory care facility. It was a high-turnover unit, with residents dying or moving and new patients with dementia admitting almost daily.
Reflections on Child Psychiatry
There is a specific kind of devastation in seeing a child failed by the world.
Today, I saw a fourteen-year-old girl who had taken glass to her skin. She came because she had been scratching away at her arm, at her eye. She had been banging her head against the wall. She had been screaming.
A Cruel Companion
Pain has been my constant—and cruel—companion for eighteen years. My suffering when bone was hitting bone in my left jaw led to the first of five maxillofacial surgeries. None worked, even when I had radiation to prevent more bone growth. I have had Botox, acupuncture, physical therapy, medication—but nothing alleviates the pain that radiates from my jaw to my ear, eye and head. The prosthetic device in my head prevents me from opening my mouth to any great extent; going for a dental cleaning is excruciating, while having dental X-rays is impossible.
Read More »November More Voices: Chronic Pain
Dear readers,
If I had to start my medical career from scratch, I’d devote more time to studying chronic pain. Specifically, I’d want to arm myself with more and better tools for alleviating it.
Over the years, I had many patients with chronic pain, and my success at treating them was spotty. Pain relievers were helpful–sometimes. Physical therapy and acupuncture were helpful–sometimes. A pain-management referral was helpful–sometimes. A conversation about past emotional traumas was helpful–sometimes.
But there were patients whom nothing seemed to help.
Insomnia Dog
I had always been a good sleeper, until about the age of 30. At that time, my father was dying of metastatic breast cancer. I would wake up every night at 2:00 a.m., with a feeling that my chest was bound in steel armor. Those 2:00 a.m. wake-ups have been with me ever since, for the past 25 years. Now and then, I would work on my “sleep hygiene” by trying not to read my Kindle in bed and cutting back on caffeine.
A few weeks ago, I decided that my insomnia had gotten out of hand and asked a
Between
This week marked almost the halfway point of my life: the first half with hearing, the second with deafness and, then, cochlear implants. I’ve lived in between two worlds and cultures, hearing and deaf, never fully belonging to either.
During my first year in medical practice, I lost almost all my hearing in both ears. For most adults, hearing loss is gradual, but for me it was sudden. Despite treatment for autoimmune inner ear disease with some ups and downs, my hearing continued to deteriorate.
I was devastated! After so many years of school and medical training, could I continue
Home of the Free
Today as a family physician I am disabled in a way that I never could have dreamed in 1997 when I joyfully marched across the magnificent auditorium stage. I wore an ostentatious maroon gown and a green velvet sash, an enormous smile and relaxed shoulders. I shook the presenter’s hand and took hold of my diploma. Four years of delayed gratification, hundreds of thousands of dollars, countless late nights and long days culminated in this moment. The camera shutter in my soul CLICKED eagerly to capture it all.
Read More »On Grieving during Residency
As time passes, I no longer remember her face or her name. But I know what brought her in. And I clearly recall how, as an intern, I walked into her grim hospital room, where two tired parents sat by her bedside: a young woman with a small pimple patch on her forehead.
She was twenty-four and had no chronic conditions—but now no sign of life. I’d spent six months as an intern at that point and was still learning to become a doctor. I’d written down all I could find about her medical history and headed toward her room,
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