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Latest Voices
Wait and Hope
Stephanie Richers
October 30, 2017
2 Comments
Today I woke up much like the days before, and this ability to rouse myself from the safety of my bed, I count as my first of small triumphs. I have been waking up like this since I can remember, in a fog of depression, with my first thought always “I’m not sure I can do this again.”
I have never not felt the pain that is depression; I have just had moments of success in hiding it. I fight the callous thoughts all day, every day. Some days I win, some days I fail spectacularly.
Why Are You Alive?
Katherine Munro
October 23, 2017
No Comments
It was the last evening of July, the summer I turned sixteen. I lay on a hospital bed on my left side, looking across the empty bed beside mine toward the window and the waning sunshine. The window was cranked open as far as its hinge would allow, wide open to the summer city evening–faraway traffic noise an undercurrent to the waves of hot pavement smell and the increasing music of a cooling breeze. I was floating in an ether of fever. Leaves rustled as beech trees shook off the heat of the day. Sparrows chirped. Relief! Respite! Perhaps
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Understanding B’s Pain
Bernadette Lim
October 22, 2017
No Comments
B entered the exam room wearing thick-rimmed glasses, tattered pants and a polo shirt. He clutched a duffel bag of clothes in one hand and bags of hot cheetos and ready-to-heat ramen in the other. The physician, an intern, could not speak Mandarin, so a medical translator was used, via phone.
“What brings you here today, B?”
Not Too Young for Pain
Leah Alsaker
October 20, 2017
No Comments
As a kid, whenever I felt bored in church, I passed the time by staring: watching the flashing emerald lights in my vision shimmer. I didn’t find this sight unusual, nor was I surprised by the ever-present ache in my head. Having nothing to compare my experiences to, I figured that heads just hurt and that you could make your vision glitter by staring the right way. The word migraine meant nothing to me.
A Tribute to Arshi
Ranu Uniyal
October 12, 2017
6 Comments
In 2013 one of my postgraduate students, Arshi, was diagnosed with breast cancer. Constant visits to the hospital, regular chemo sessions, medications, and visits to Tata Memorial in Mumbai. We gathered for poetry readings and meetings for prayers. We celebrated her birthday on 2nd December, 2013 with a new hairdo and an artificial breast that had been arranged by a friend from Mumbai.
Ah, how I wished some miracle would happen and relieve her of her pain.
The Pain That Won’t Go Away
Sandy Brown
October 10, 2017
No Comments
My wife lives with pain. It followed a failed shoulder surgery two years ago and wasn’t supposed to happen with a simple laparoscopic rotator cuff repair. But, due to prolonged traction and an errant scalene nerve block, she suffered a median neuritis that rendered her dominant hand useless, and nothing has been able to fix it.
Metaphorizing My Pain
Kit Loke
October 10, 2017
No Comments
My chronic neuropathic pain is a physical reality, not a product of my imagination. It is the result of a spinal injury sustained during a “simple biopsy” of a spinal cord tumor detected through an MRI. The operation was performed by an eager neurosurgeon in 2004. When I woke from the anesthesia, I could hardly breathe; I felt like a tight band was around my lower chest wall. I also couldn’t move my legs, and they were extremely sensitive to touch. Since then, the pain has expanded and intensified.
Doubting Thomas
Gazi Rashid
October 6, 2017
No Comments
“I’m done crying.” The eyes professed: to us, grandma, God — everyone who failed him.
Pain Deniers
Shirley Phillips
October 5, 2017
No Comments
The stabbing pain in my abdomen jolted me awake at 3 a.m. Four broken bones, giving birth to two babies, gallstones – all minor aches compared to this. At the hospital they found no reason for my pain. The blood tests were normal. I had no fever. They sent me home.
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