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Latest Voices
The Madonna
They must have given me something for sleep. My last memory was Madonnas, filled with tears in their eyes. Madonnas?
When I awoke, the lights were out and the door was closed. I could hear voices in the hallway but couldn’t make out what they were saying. I could feel my naked skin as it rubbed against the scratchy sheets. I started to get out of the bed, but I discovered that I was restrained by the side rails.
It’s Probably Nothing
As a third-year medical student, I’m used to being tired and stressed, and like many of us in training, I tend to neglect my own health. “It’s probably nothing,” I told myself. “I’m overthinking it. Illness anxiety disorder.”
But I’d always been unusually sensitive to cold. Since childhood, my hands and feet would freeze, turning pale, numb, sometimes bluish. I thought it was just a quirky trait. Then I learned about Raynaud’s phenomenon in class, and my classmates and I joked: “You totally have that.”
Lady in Waiting
I’ve been a “lady in waiting” more than once. A traditional “lady in waiting” attends to royalty—which sounds like a pretty cushy job. But when you’re a lady waiting for the results of a biopsy, the task is a royal pain. Waiting for the phone to ring when you’re younger often means getting asked out on a date. Then years later, you find yourself waiting for a call from your doctor, to set a follow-up appointment to discuss your biopsy results. As anyone can attest, this waiting period can be a true test of resilience.
An Imagination Run Wild
I have had four breast biopsies. The procedures did not hurt since they occurred when I was in a twilight sleep. What caused me pain, however, was waiting for the results.
My imagination would run wild. Would I need a single or double mastectomy? Would I have implants or just live my life with a flat chest as I did through most of my teenage years? Would the cancer be stage 4 and have spread to lymph nodes? How much time would I have left to create memories with my beloved children?
Ruminations on a Ruined Face
Right now, it’s dark red. With fifteen days of radiation to go, it seems it will get a whole lot darker.
At least they warned me about the sunburn. They did not warn me about the swelling and the mouth sores. And the red crusted-shut eyes and floaters. “It’s different for everyone,” they say.
Journal Entry 16-Jul-25
Today a patient died. Very usual for me as a palliative care doctor. She was seventy years old and very sick for a while. This really shouldn’t have surprised anyone, but her family still wept. I was sitting inside the hospice when the funeral home came to get the body. Her relatives watched outside as they loaded her into the vehicle. Then I heard wailing, loud sobs going on outside: a public display of grief that I had not expected.
August More Voices: Awaiting a Diagnosis
Dear readers,
It was autumn, and I had just started medical school at the advanced age of thirty. I’d always been in good health, so when my symptoms first appeared, I was sure they couldn’t be anything serious.
The first hint of a problem came in the middle of a seminar, when I had to leave the room to urinate. It struck me as a little odd. The next time the seminar met, I used the bathroom beforehand, just to be on the safe side, but it didn’t help. Halfway through I had to excuse myself again.
Hunh.
Conspiracy of Silence
When I was little, my mother would tell me that not everything I am thinking should be said. Years later, in November 2023, it became apparent to me that my father was dying, and I said so. I said it to everybody: my parents, my brothers, my extended family. I told them that David, my daddy, is dying. People watched me in shock. Nobody believed me.
The First Time I Ran Away
The day began like any other in my OB-GYN rotation. A few hours before rounds, I approached a patient who’d just returned from an emergency Cesarean section. I began asking routine questions, until my senior gently nudged me. “Be careful what you ask,” he whispered. “She doesn’t know her baby died in utero.”
