Latest Voices

By Pulse Team
October 2, 2019

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Latest Voices

Fray

Joe Amaral February 3, 2018 No Comments

Driving the ambulance in crushing fatigue, my weighted eyelids slit to make sodium glows of street lamps into arcing orange, bobbing like stars that penetrate unfired darkness. Saintly portals to dawn.

Naptime Dexterity

Jeffrey Seitzer February 2, 2018 No Comments

It’s hard enough keeping most kids on a reasonable sleep schedule. When you throw a series of weekly, sometimes biweekly, outpatient surgeries into the mix, it’s “Houston, we have a problem.” A very big problem.

Heaven in a Hospital Room

Emily Eresuma February 2, 2018 No Comments

I was finally comfortable in my hospital bed but sleep was not coming. I had my eyes closed trying to sleep through the pain of a scrubbed out hip joint infected by a high contrast injection for an MRI procedure.

As I was about to drift off, it was time for the nurse to check my vitals or give me my medicine. She was a larger woman but she moved very quietly thinking I was asleep. She was at the side of my bed and I was watching her, but she was not aware of my watching.

Valentine’s Day Meltdown

Ronna L. Edelstein February 1, 2018 No Comments

Sleep became a foreign concept to Dad and me when he began to suffer hypoglycemic attacks. These attacks left him mentally disoriented and physically weak. Without immediate food, they could escalate into a more severe condition, leading to a coma or even death. As a result, I set my alarm to awaken me every ninety minutes throughout the night. I would then prepare a snack for Dad—milk and peanut butter on a cracker, pudding, a glass of orange juice—and wake him up to eat.

Ninety-one Pages Over Thirty-two Hours

Marilyn Barton January 23, 2018 2 Comments

My friend Joy was an indomitable trauma nurse. She never minded taking on the most challenging patients. She and I worked together in the ER for six years, and no amount of blood or guts could scare her off. When EMTs brought in a gory-looking accident victim, Joy was always the first one in the room, cutting off the patient’s clothes, taking vital signs, starting IV fluids, connecting monitors, noting injuries… The only thing Joy hated was paperwork.

The Paperweight

Cynthia Stock January 22, 2018 1 Comment

I retired last October. After forty years in a cardiovascular ICU, I left the profession I loved. I left, in part, because of the paperwork.

Three Kinds of Paperwork

Andrea Gordon January 22, 2018 No Comments

There are three kinds of paperwork in my office.

The first kind of paperwork, the one the phrase evokes, is really mostly computer work. Although my shifts often run late, I don’t mind the time actually spent in the exam room with patients. The exhaustion hits as I finish a four-hour sprint only to realize that I have another one to two hours of documentation work. Then add on answering messages, dealing with lab results and filling out forms (some of which are on actual paper), and I can feel the joy of my job leaking away into

The Gifts of Grief

Alison Hartman January 9, 2018 1 Comment

In March 2017, my son died of a heroin overdose. He was twenty-five years old.

It began with his use of recreational drugs in his early teens. Before long, he was addicted to prescription opioids. And, finally, heroin.

Watching my beloved child slowly destroy himself was a heart-wrenching experience, almost as devastating as facing the finality of his death.

The Heaviness of Paper

Andrea Sinclair January 2, 2018 No Comments

There’s an old binder still sitting on the bottom shelf of one of my bookcases. The cheerful primary colors of the label stand out amidst the other books, especially because it takes up nearly twice the width of the next largest spine. It proclaims itself to be the “New Family Handbook” from the local NICU, and it has been sitting on that shelf for nearly six years now. That binder became the dumping ground for all the paper associated with my son’s premature birth, his month-long hospital stay, the small hernia he needed surgically repaired.