Latest Voices

By Pulse Team
October 2, 2019

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Latest Voices

Riding the Anxiety Seesaw

Andrea Gordon August 4, 2018 No Comments

I have always worked to deadlines. Even in college, when I was passionately engaged in a subject like Shakespeare’s plays, I was perversely proud of being able to write “A” papers by staying up all night. My cabinet still holds a paper upon which the professor wrote “I don’t know how, Ms. Gordon, but it seems you have done it again.”

It drives my husband crazy. He is a planner, has great self-discipline, a wide variety of interests and an awe-inspiring CV. He can have four projects and three articles in progress at once, tracking his progress on

To Envy a Canine

Benjamin Reitzel August 3, 2018 No Comments

It’s 0348. I fell awake at 0234, such a pretty number. I recall residency, it was only a year ago…seeing funny times like that on the top of my consult sheets, praying for a stable floor and speedy 0730.

But I’m not on call. I want to sleep, but I can’t. The melatonin usually works, but it’s been failing of late. Why is that sodium so low? Did I give the right advice to that dad with his child’s fever? That lady with back pain had cancer ten years ago: when was her last mammogram? His cancer is progressing

Far From Routine

Jeffrey Millstein August 2, 2018 No Comments

The Vietnam war turned Ned from a tough-as-nails fighter into a worried soul as fragile as porcelain. He survived his tour of duty physically intact, but with his emotional resilience worn away like an old roof, allowing disabling fear to deluge over something as routine as a blood pressure check.

August Angst

Ronna L. Edelstein August 1, 2018 2 Comments

I think I was born feeling anxious. If nothing external causes my anxiety, then I find internal reasons: a slight pain in my side, an ache in my head, a bump on my leg. However, once a year—every August—my anxiety leaps off the chart. It is time for my mammogram.

A Second Chance

Ahsan Iqbal July 22, 2018 No Comments

“Dr. Iqbal, are we really going to follow up and keep her in our practice? She’s a heroin addict and she’s going to be using again this pregnancy. She never went to any rehab or took any suboxone!”

I asked our nurse what she knew about the patient other than what she obtained in triage. She replied that it was all she knew, so I told her the rest of the story.

Quitting Cancer Sticks

Marilyn Barton July 10, 2018 4 Comments

Fifty years ago, smoking was socially acceptable, and I purchased my first carton of Kools for only three dollars. Liberated and away from home in college, I could inhale freshly lit tobacco whenever I wanted. Ah, heavenly.

Honoring Addiction

Alison Hartman July 8, 2018 2 Comments

My son struggled with addiction for over eight years. He died last March of a heroin overdose at the age of 25. To lose a child is completely devastating. I’ve been working through the many layers of grief and am slowly healing.

Wounded

Gazi Rashid July 3, 2018 No Comments

I don’t blame you for being in pain. It’s a nasty wound you have.

When we rolled you back to the OR, bracing against every bump, I was there. When they cleaned out the microbial debris, I was there. When they layered in wet gauze to siphon out any fluid, I was there.

So when I come around the next day to change your dressing, I don’t blame you for demanding pain medicine beforehand. I’m relieved that you seem willing to work with me. That the many whispered warnings and notes from your

Saying “Yes”

Ronna L. Edelstein July 1, 2018 1 Comment

In 2008, I had the first of five surgeries on my jaw; I had the last one on December 13, 2017. To deal with the pain from the surgeries and from the prosthetic device implanted in my head, I initially relied upon Tylenol. That medication, however, soon proved useless; it did nothing to alleviate the intense pain I was enduring. But I could not take Alleve or related drugs due to the effect those medications had on my stomach. My primary care physician, who had prescribed Vicodin to my father for his spinal stenosis, gave me a prescription for the