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The Dark

6 Comments / Poems /

Francie Camper ~

Parkway, three a.m. Ambient light.
Try to shake off the sleeping pill.
Open car window. Rock station 104.3
Watch the divider, the white line.

Count the other cars on the road,
make up stories to stay awake.
Don’t miss the exit for the Interstate.
Don’t miss the Willis Avenue Bridge.

Twenty-six minutes to a parking space.
Forget to read the parking sign.
Shoulder heavy bag: water, apple,
book, journal, healthcare proxy.

One desk and three doors into the
emergency room. Ask the first
person. Ask the second. The third.
Oh she’s in X-ray, it’ll be a while.

The Dark Read More »

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Encounters: “I take so many medications…”

Leave a Comment / visuals /

Bronx, New York

About this Encounter: 

I take twenty-one pills at night before I go to bed. In some ways, I think of myself as a pharmacy, I take so many medications.

About the Encounters Project:

This past summer, Pulse’s Visuals Editor collaborated with two medical students from Albert Einstein College of Medicine to launch a project that will add more patient voices to Pulse. Together with Sara Kohrt, students Kristen Lee and Erin McCoy photographed and interviewed patients who were waiting to see their doctors at a Bronx family health center. Patients were asked to talk about their healthcare experiences, to share stories about their lives outside the clinic walls and to reflect on how these two worlds affect each other.

Visuals editor:

Sara Kohrt

Encounters: “I take so many medications…” Read More »

Dismissing a Patient

Leave a Comment / Tough Choices /

I could smell the greasy, fast food before I even reached for the door. As I entered the exam room, I caught her rummaging through her McDonald’s bag, then she quickly looked up with a big grin on her face. Without even a pause, she shoved a french fry in her mouth and exclaimed “Hi, Dr. Eisenberg!” Her T-shirt was taut over her pregnant belly, slightly riding up to reveal her chocolaty, smooth skin.

Sigh, I had reminded her before to not bring fast food into the office.

Dismissing a Patient Read More »

Cat and Mouse

7 Comments / Stories /

Kristen Lee ~

On TV shows, therapists decorate their rooms with leather lounge chairs, throw pillows and organza curtains that let in the light.

But Dr. Hassan’s office is in the clinic basement. The fluorescent lighting is sterile. She has a gray metal desk–I think every doctor I’ve shadowed as a medical student has had that same desk.

But I’m not here as a student.

I’ve been anticipating this appointment for a month. In March, I started to take an online physiology exam for school, but instead spent twenty minutes staring motionless at the computer screen. I eventually input the answers and passed the test, but I’d stopped caring.

A week later, I had a panic attack while riding the 6 Train through Midtown Manhattan at rush hour. I’d already been feeling trapped by the tightly scheduled lifestyle of a medical student, and getting sandwiched between strangers inside an underground tube of concrete didn’t help.

Cat and Mouse Read More »

Mom at Home

3 Comments / Stories /

Arlen Gargagliano ~

Aisha is lurking in the kitchen just outside my home-office door. I hear her rattling dishes and speaking to herself in Twi, a language of her native Ghana. I know that she wants my attention, but I’ve told her that I need time to work. I try to focus on grading my college students’ papers, but I’m distracted.

Aisha is one of my mother’s aides. My mother requires care twenty-four/seven, and Aisha is one of several women, primarily foreign-born, who care for her in shifts. Mom’s had this arrangement since 2012, when several ministrokes disabled her brain and self-care abilities, and a broken leg left her mostly bedbound. My father’s recent death, ending their marriage of more than five decades, prompted my husband and me to bring Mom into our home. She’s been living here with us for the past five months.

In Mom’s younger days, the word “dynamo” wouldn’t begin to describe her. She orchestrated countless gatherings and large-scale fiestas at home for our family (my parents, my four siblings and me), our large extended family and friends and Dad’s Mad Men clients. She bossed us all around with prep tasks, and delighted guests

Mom at Home Read More »

AtTheChildrensHospital

At the Children’s Hospital

Leave a Comment / visuals /

Rachel Schwartz

About the artist:

Rachel Schwartz currently work as a healthcare researcher at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford, in Palo Alto, CA. “My work focuses on improving care delivery for patients and their families, particularly those with cultural or linguistic communication barriers. My PhD was in Communication Sciences and Disorders (from McGill University) and I completed a postdoctoral fellowship in delivery system science at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation Research Institute.”

About the artwork:

“Outside of Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford, I observed this crying bird of paradise. For me, it captured the feeling of working at a hospital, where beauty and grief coexist in nearly every encounter.”

Visuals editor:

Sara Kohrt

At the Children’s Hospital Read More »

To Chemo or Not to Chemo

Leave a Comment / Tough Choices /
 
Twenty years ago this month, I was diagnosed with colon cancer.

Postsurgical analysis of my biopsies indicated that the cancer had grown just into my intestinal wall. Pathology said it was a genetically aggressive type, but no cancer cells were found in the lymph nodes that were removed along with much of my descending colon. In addition, no metastases were found during either surgical inspection or imaging. 

So, to proceed with chemotherapy or not? There was no evidence the cancer was loose in my body or already in my liver, but there could be no proof it wasn’t. And if it was, chemo might kill it.

To Chemo or Not to Chemo Read More »

Reflection in the Mirror

Leave a Comment / Afraid /
I love my bathroom–after all, I picked the flooring and all the finishes, including the mirror spanning the wall opposite the shower. One morning, I step out of the shower, drying my underarm, when a bump under my breast reflects in the mirror. When my arm is down, it’s gone. When my arm is up, it’s there. Is it a cyst? Did I hit my chest? Is it in my breast? Oh, well, I’m late to work, so I run off.

Reflection in the Mirror Read More »

A Dreary Day

Leave a Comment / Tough Choices /
 
It was a dreary January Seattle afternoon. I’d lost my job helping my son, who’d suffered repeated outbursts of angst despite doctors, counselors and inpatient hospitalizations. 
 
I sat sipping tea across from Martin, my child crisis system advocate. Martin’s eyes seemed kind. We discussed my options. It became clear that the Child Study and Treatment Center (CSTC), Washington State’s inpatient child psychiatric facility, was the only viable residential choice. State programs meant mounds of paperwork and procedures. As I said, “Let’s get the process going,” Martin’s demeanor changed.

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Providing Comfort, Providing Care

Leave a Comment / Tough Choices /

“It’s your patient. What would you like to do?” my attending asked. This question was not meant simply as a test of my knowledge; I was expected to give my opinion as a valued member of the team. A requirement for fourth-year medical students, my acting internship was more “intern” than “acting.” I worked alongside residents on the inpatient medicine service, calling consults, updating families and placing orders. There was one difference, however: all of my orders required an MD’s signature.

Buoyed by this safety net, I got a taste of the thrilling yet overwhelming influence physicians can have in the lives of their patients. Our everyday decisions regarding diagnostics, medications, and procedures can have profound consequences. In just a few years, I would have to make my own choices, without the safety net. I was and am aware that in some cases, the right decision could end up meaning the difference between life and death.

Providing Comfort, Providing Care Read More »

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