Page 218 – Pulse

Mrs. Finch and Ms. Virginia

Evan Heald

A Different View

Most days, Mrs. Finch’s perspective was outrageously optimistic and embarrassingly complimentary. Although she had the typical assortment of nonagenarian maladies, she would not let that define her; whenever she visited my office, it was hard to get to a chief complaint because of her relentless focus on how nicely the parking lot had been graveled, or “what a sweet, sweet nurse you have,” or my partner’s haircut or the “clever, clever little hooks” holding the geraniums at the entry.

Never mind the treasure trove of doubled superlatives she saved for me, her physician.

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injecting myself

Imperfect Farewells

6 Comments / Poems / Judy Schaefer

Judy Schaefer

I was not with my mother when she died, her heart bursting
against her ribs, screaming for a violent release from her chest
I listened, ear to phone: nothing-more-could-be-done
I recall her now, prayer petals of morning’s first red rose, the perfect
Mezzo-soprano of a summer evening’s lullaby, an open window to song
Clinical colleagues reported massive myocardial infarction
I reported that I was an orphan

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Early

1 Comment / visuals / Alia Moore

Alia Moore

About the artist:

“I am currently completing my third year of internal medicine residency in Denver, Colorado. After graduation, I plan on pursuing primary care among the urban underserved. I discovered photography in medical school and have been taking pictures ever since. It’s one way that I explore my creativity and also a way to view my job and my patients from a different perspective.” Alia Moore has previously published a story in Pulse. Her portfolio can be viewed http://amphoto.virb.com.

About the artwork:

“This photograph is part of a larger project entitled Short Coats, which I completed in medical school after being chosen as an artist-in-residence. The series was meant to capture some of the new and frightening experiences common to young doctors in training, including the staggering amounts of information we are supposed to learn, the overwhelmingly high expectations of us by our patients and professors, the constant and desperate search for a single moment of free time and, as illustrated here, waking up really, really early.”

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fall rain

Dance in Three Movements

3 Comments / Stories / Anna Schmidt

Anna Schmidt

Reprieve

Once the weeks of morning sickness subside, I feel as if I’ve grown wings.

Even with the fatigue, it’s as though someone has pressed a great “reset” button on years of inflammation. That elbow joint that hasn’t straightened fully for years suddenly rediscovers its full range of motion. My knees, too, become straighter and stronger than they’ve been in many years.

Even without the meds, ditched in honor of my growing baby’s health, it is my best and most dramatic remission since my teen years–the last time my hormones went to town.

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One Last Gift

11 Comments / Stories / Edward Beal

Edward Beal

During most of my career as a psychiatrist, I haven’t often dealt directly with death. For the past five years, though, I have had the privilege of spending two days a week treating service men and women returning from deployments in Afghanistan and Iraq. Listening to their stories and talking with them about their war experiences, I’ve spent much more time thinking about death and dying.

Despite this, I was shocked when my wife recently told me she was planning to donate her body to science–specifically, to the Georgetown University Medical Center’s anatomical donors program.

My first thought was that she obviously has never been a first-year medical student in a Gross Anatomy lab. My next impulse was to warn her of her mistake.

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Mask

3 Comments / visuals / Joanna White

Joanna White

About the artist:

Joanna White is a music professor at Central Michigan University. She has recently had creative work accepted for work or published in Ars Medica, Minerva Rising, Naugatuck River Review, Grey Sparrow Journal and other venues. She lives with her husband and has a daughter and a son in college.

About the artwork:

“At a preoperative visit with an anesthesiologist last year, I saw the oxygen mask that she would use and burst into tears. I believe that the sight of the mask brought back fears related to a surgeries in childhood. The startled doctor told me to take the mask home and ‘put it under your pillow’ to get used to it. The mask did not quite make it under my pillow, but I did make a watercolor painting of it.”

Visuals editor:

Justin Sanders

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She Who Shows Up

7 Comments / Poems / Dianne Avey

Dianne Avey

She who shows up
to guide tiny fingers
toward ripening blackberries
and the spiral
of a moonsnail shell

Late summer treasures

She who shows up
with tea and bread
all the time in the world
to walk hand in small hand

My son beautifully distracted

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autumn chill

Leave a Comment / Haiku / Charles Trumbull

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Busting Grandma Out

3 Comments / Stories / S.E. Street

S.E. Street

I had been in London on business all of seven hours when my son, Tom, called me at two in the morning from our hometown, Sydney, Australia.

“Grandma’s had a fall. She’s been taken to the hospital, but she’s all right.”

My mother’s having a fall was nothing unusual; she had always been an unpredictable fainter. My husband and children and I called it her party trick, making light of it to soothe her embarrassment.

She had no recollection of these episodes; one minute she’d be seated at the table, and the next, she’d be lying on her back on the floor, her feet propped up on a chair, with the family smiling down at her as if she were Sleeping Beauty awakening from years of slumber.

We are a medical and nursing family–I’m a retired nurse, and my husband, brother and sister-in-law are doctors–and we’d long since had her undergo exhaustive tests to check for serious underlying conditions. The tests had revealed nothing other than a slow heart rate and an occasional drop in blood pressure.

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