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Latest Voices
How Much Longer, and Why Are Gramma’s Ankles So Dark?
I am twelve, sitting with ankles crossed, hands in my lap. Sitting quietly as I have been taught. We are visiting my grandmother. I stare at the mantle clock, brain ticking off seconds, watching the slow-moving minute hand creep toward 12 noon.
Why Good Doctors Are Often Late
I am one of millions of Americans with wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a potentially blinding degenerative eye disease. I was diagnosed more than five years ago and, thanks to careful monitoring and treatment, still have 20/25 vision in both eyes. I receive my treatment at a huge Retina Clinic nestled within a vast academic medical center. The Retina Clinic is frequently disrupted by add-ons and emergencies. Delays are common. I don’t complain because I, myself, have caused disruptions and delays.
The Ticking of Time
To celebrate my sixth birthday, my family and I traveled to Niagara Falls. Just before returning home, they gave me my present—my first grown-up watch. Although a simple piece of jewelry with its round face, black hands, and silver stretch band, I embraced it as if it were a rare gem.
September More Voices: Watching the Clock
Dear Pulse readers,
“My only enemy is time,” Charlie Chaplin once said. He was probably referring to the aging process, but he might just as well have been talking about the medical visit.
For me, the hardest part of being a doctor is time.
Breckenridge
Here’s what happens when your insides twist and lock. The key? Well, there might not be one.
At first, your innards are just tender. Maybe it’s only the havoc of your upcoming vacation. What the hell, you think. It will go away on its own, right, like a pimple or a hangover.
Cancer during COVID
The sky darkens outside my window in Shanghai. My grandma used to call this plum rain: rains during the hot months, when plums wither away, turning juice to clouds, waiting to flood the dry land.
In the spring, my grandma tasted blood in her mouth. A week later, she was diagnosed with oral cancer. Doctors said it was merely a benign tumor, a natural part of aging. But within weeks, her body had shrunk like a deflated balloon and eating was painful. A few months later, the tumor had metastasized, spreading into her lymph nodes.
Knowledge Is Power
“Knowledge Is Power” proclaims a magnet on my refrigerator. The magnet is from the New York Public Library, but the sentiment is from Francis Bacon—and I embrace it as if it’s absolutely and invariably true. That is, when faced with a quandary in an unfamiliar area, I start digging for information with the intensity of a terrier whose prey is just out of reach. Especially when I’m faced with medical quandaries.
All Rashed Out
What will tomorrow bring? This is the theme running in my head today as I zip in and out of patients’ rooms: listening, comforting, joking. And, just trying to get through the day.
They aren’t the only ones who are sick. I am still rashed out on my face and neck from one month ago.
Post-COVID, Round 3. A rash. Intense itching. Angioedema (swelling). Shortness of breath. My allergist and dermatologist are scratching their heads, trying to figure this out.
Ideally and Sometimes
Ideally, coping is sitting down and having dialogues with myself, friends, or good colleagues about what bothers me. It is asking for advice and sharing my thoughts. It is writing down what I can do to solve problems and then creating an action plan.
Sometimes, however, coping is …
