the scent of sweet peas
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Breathing the Same Air
Ronald Lands
His hand-carved pipes still lean
in their rack like a row of saxophones
and fill the room with memories
of black vinyl records, Glenn Miller’s band
playing “Chattanooga Choo Choo,”
a kitchen match scratched
across the bottom of his shoe
and swirling clouds of tobacco smoke,
a tribute to the charred remains
of the man who still lives in smoke-filled
images of when we breathed the same air.
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Juxtaposed
Mary Kilcoyne
About the artist:
“In July 2014 I was diagnosed with stage 3 Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Before that I was a baker, but since my chemotherapy port wouldn’t allow me to lift more than forty pounds I had to put that on hold. So I started looking for something else that I could do to be creative. Enter photography.”
About the artwork:
“My sister is the reason I took this photo. She could see how conflicted I was about cancer and chemotherapy, and the realization that my life would never be the same again. One morning she told me to grab my camera, and we walked around our property trading the camera back and forth and taking pictures. She wasn’t trying to distract me from everything, but rather to find some way to express it. Thus this work’s title, Juxtaposed. The last chapter title from The Magician’s Nephew, by C.S. Lewis, always stuck with me: ‘The End of This Story
What Money Can Buy
Hind Almazeedi
Arwa arrives late to the clinic. Her husband is parked outside waiting for her.
“You missed your last two appointments,” I say, checking her records. It’s been four months.
“I didn’t have a ride,” she shrugs.
Many of my patients live close to the primary-care center in Kuwait where I work as a family physician, but the desert heat makes it impossible to come here on foot. Two minutes under the sun can leave you delirious, and if you have asthma, the sudden dust storms are a constant threat. Without an air-conditioned car, you’re essentially homebound.
I know this, so I don’t argue with Arwa.
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What’s Love Got To Do With It?
H. Lee Kagan
My longtime patient Brenda let the top of her exam gown drop to her waist, stepped down off the exam table and turned to look at herself in the mirror. As I watched, she cupped her seventy-eight-year-old breasts in her palms and unceremoniously hoisted them up to where they’d probably resided when she was in her twenties.
“I’m thinking about having my boobs done,” she said. “My girlfriend had hers done, and she’s very happy with how they turned out. What do you think, doctor?”
As she spoke, her eyes remained on her reflection. Breasts held high, she made quarter turns to the right and left, then leaned back.
“I don’t like how they look now,” she said, appraising her reflection.
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A Therapeutic Garden
Michael Leach
About the artist:
Michael Leach is a health researcher, wordsmith and photography lover. Having recently submitted his thesis for a PhD in pharmacy at the University of South Australia, Michael is currently working as a freelance academic editor while pursuing interests in visual poetry and photography. His visual poetry has been published in the Medical Journal of Australia, A New Ulster and Medical Humanities. He creates visual images in order to capture and share the beauty and poignancy that he perceives in everyday life.
About the artwork:
“I photographed this scene one fine spring day while strolling through the Adelaide Botanic Garden in Adelaide, South Australia. I was struck by the juxtaposition of the blue sky, tranquil waters and vibrant flora with two neighboring hospital wings: the radiation oncology and residential wings of the Royal Adelaide Hospital. It called to mind a smiling patient I had just seen sitting in the garden and, on a more
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Under the CyberKnife
Judson Scruton
Expectant, bound, I wait
for the robotic arm
to deliver
intense radiation
to cancerous prostate.
The probing eye of the radial arm
searches for my marked gland
to the soundtrack of my choosing–
gentle waves, then pounding surf.
Where am I? What am I?
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Flourish
Danielle Shamlian
About the artist:
Danielle Shamlian is a freelance photographer in eastern Massachusetts, specializing in children and family photography. She received her degree in photography from Boston University Center for Digital Imaging Arts. In May 2014, she was diagnosed with an aggressive breast cancer. This shock was the beginning of an overwhelming two years. She’s gone through rounds of chemo, radiation, a bilateral mastectomy and reconstructive surgery, and she continues with different treatments today. When she had to stop using her heavy DSLR camera, she began using her point-and-shoot camera and cell phone to take photos of flowers and nature, which she loves. “Taking pictures lifts my spirits immensely and allows me an escape from the challenges of my treatment.” Further work can be seen at DanielleShamlian.com.
About the artwork:
“I didn’t stumble upon this flower; it just came to me as part of a beautiful gift bouquet. The roses
Tough Love
Maria Gervits
I miss Alba. I don’t know why, but I do. She was the most challenging patient I’ve ever had. I dreaded seeing her in the office–and yet, somehow, she won me over.
Alba was fifty-nine, with short, silver hair, a deep, gravelly voice from decades of smoking, and an attitude. She had lung disease, heart disease, depression, arthritis and HIV. She also had a complicated social situation. She’d used cocaine and heroin until her husband had died of HIV. She’d then moved in with her elderly mother and cared for her until her mother died of a stroke. Now Alba lived in a shelter right around the corner from where her father had been shot years before.
The biggest joy in Alba’s life was her granddaughter; but her estranged daughter wasn’t letting Alba see her.
Alba frequently missed appointments or, just as often, walked in without notice, demanding to be seen. She was always in crisis–and she generally took out her frustrations on me.
Rendezvous
Raymond Abbott
Donald Wyatt. I have written of him before and did not plan to write about him again. Then, just today, something happened.
I was slated to meet him at the usual place. We’ve been having lunch together once a month for more than seven years. Not coincidentally, it’s been exactly that many years since I last worked as a social worker for a local mental-health agency. Donald was one of my clients. When I was about to retire, his mother asked me if I would have coffee or lunch with Donald once in awhile.
“Sure,” I said, never thinking it would go on for so long.