Page 223 – Pulse

Embrace

Jessica Liu

About the artist:

Jessica Liu is currently a third-year medical student at the University of California Davis, where she serves as a codirector of the Willow Student-Run Free Clinic. “One of my favorite quotes is from Albert Einstein, who wrote, ‘The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.’ Having a creative outlet while in medical school allows me to continue to stand in awe before the mysterious.”

About the artwork:

“The Willow Student-Run Free Clinic holds a weekly Wellness Night at the local Salvation Army, where residents of the shelter gather to draw, paint and meditate and, in so doing, release some of the stresses of homelessness. As I’ve sat down and painted alongside these residents, I’ve become witness to the powerful healing potential of the » Continue Reading.

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a white sheet

1 Comment / Haiku / David Doukas

a white sheet Read More »

Observations

9 Comments / Poems / Veneta Masson

1. Mom spends all her time saying thank you.

Casseroles
whole dinners
arrive at the door,
notes
phone calls
assurances of prayer
and being there
if something is needed,
offers to pick up the children
the laundry
tidy the house
run errands.

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Dilaudid Land

2 Comments / visuals / Cortney Davis

Cortney Davis

About the artist:

Cortney Davis, a nurse practitioner, is the author of five poetry collections, most recently Leopold’s Maneuvers, winner of the Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Poetry. Her most recent nonfiction publication is The Heart’s Truth: Essays on the the Art of Nursing. An illness narrative in words and images, entitled Twenty-Six Days: When the Nurse Became a Patient, is forthcoming in Spring 2015 from Kent State University Press. On the lighter side, she enjoys serving as poetry editor of Alimentum: The Literature of Food. Her website is cortneydavis.com.

About the artwork:

“In June 2013 I was admitted for day surgery, a surgery in which everything went wrong. After a series of complications, I was a patient for twenty-six days. When I received IV hydromorphone (Dilaudid) for pain, I entered an odd land that was both comforting and terrifying. Pain disappeared; I was adrift on a calm sea. But along with relief came bizarre and frightening dreams and thoughts, including the dark, roiling

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epidermal tongues

8 Comments / Haiku / Alan Summers

epidermal tongues Read More »

Bonding Time

28 Comments / Stories / Nelly Schottel

Nelly Schottel

As an intern in the neonatal intensive-care unit (NICU), I am one of several doctors who rarely see or touch the tiny patients we treat. We sit in a back room off a distant hallway, far removed from the babies, reviewing lab results and blood gases on the computer. Much of the time I feel like the Wizard of Oz, controlling a marvelous machine from behind a curtain.

The only uninterrupted time I have with my patients comes at 5:30 am, during pre-rounds, when I hurriedly examine my ten small, complex charges. This is the most rushed part of the day, but these are also the rare moments that I actually spend with a patient.

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In Plain Sight #1

(Not So) Golden Years

24 Comments / Stories / Madge Kaplan

Madge Kaplan

When I read news articles about caring for elderly parents at a distance, I sometimes shake my head. There’s a tendency to put the best spin on the experience: as long as you contact the right people, get the right information and treat the ups and downs as just part of life’s challenges, you’ll be fine. You can do this!

I find myself wondering when the author last talked to a caregiver at her wits’ end–emotions and finances drained, logistics spiraling out of control.

I was a long-distance caregiver for twelve years. I believe it’s best to resist a formulaic approach in favor of one informed by the details–and always, always, humbled by the truth.

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Pacemaker

3 Comments / Poems / Cheryl Lewis

Cheryl Lewis

Knotted seams gather scrubbed skin
and titanium plumbs a heart–
guide wires routing an improvised pulse
and tracing an erratic existence.

In the beginning doctors said
genetic mistake, detrimental
mutation, one in 10,000
statistically speaking. God’s will.

At night we wrestle with angels.
Celestial static, incandescent
blue they search our souls
and finger a laboring heart,
heavy like dense lumpy clay
waterlogged and unformed.

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torn tree limbs

7 Comments / Haiku / Karen Richardson

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Dear Joseph

26 Comments / Stories / Michael Terry

Michael Terry

I stood right beside them as they slowly slid your head into a plastic bag, looped the coarse twine about your neck and tied it tightly. Like the amateurs they were, they double-knotted it to make sure nothing came loose or dripped out. Then they casually walked away, chatting about what would come next.

Within minutes the bag fogged up, and a clear red liquid pooled at the bottom.

That was just the beginning of the ritual.

I’m sure that under other circumstances you would have put up a fight, Joseph, but today you were no match for them. No matter that they were six slender twenty-somethings, and you at least six feet and 250 pounds; you were on their turf and utterly at their mercy.

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