Page 234 – Pulse

Ms. Taylor

Leave a Comment / Stories / Remya Tharackal Ravindran

Remya Tharackal Ravindran

Ms. Taylor was one of three newly hospitalized patients I saw that morning. She was a previously healthy woman in her forties, single and childless, who worked in the fashion industry. As I scanned her admission notes, three things stood out: shortness of breath, elevated calcium level and kidney failure. I read on, thinking of possible causes, then something caught my eye. Her breast exam had revealed multiple breast masses, and her chest x-ray showed fluid-filled lungs.

Everything fell into place: cancer, first in the breast and then spreading to the lungs. I was spared a diagnostic challenge, but I now had to face something more difficult–talking with Ms. Taylor about her diagnosis. Did she even know what it was? It didn’t seem so.

For me, breaking bad news is an elusive art. As I walked to Ms. Taylor’s room, I tried to recollect some of the strategies I’d been taught, like finding out what the patient thinks is going on and asking how much he or she wants to know. Still, I didn’t know how Ms. Taylor would react. I felt nervous.

Ms. Taylor was sitting upright in bed, wearing an oxygen tube. She was a

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Grandmother

Pearls Before Swine

Adverse Effects

The Disabled Boat

Leave a Comment / Poems / Steve Gunther-Murphy

Steve Gunther-Murphy

Drifting on the sea of disease
in a cardboard boat,

never knowing when the slash
of a spinal eel
will lunge from its coral-bone cave
and cut through
the threads
of a once dancing ankle
or the push of a thigh
singing race or run.

Waiting without wanting–
as the slap of a wave
against the paper-thin stern
then bow
brings on the storm
that pummels every movement
until you slip into a coma of the wind;

your sails ripped from the mainstay
and the tar between the rails
yelling like the death of a two-year-old child.

You wake weeks
later
and notice
that your keel is gone;

your body shakes like a rock cod against
the pith of the boat’s floor
with the hook deep in your gill;
making you talk in slow motion
and without air.

Who wants to live this life
of a shadow fish,
pulled from the depths of who you were
and gutted of simple motions
or the ability to sing glee from your gullet?

This is not the space I am.

This is not the blue

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Making Headlines

Triptych for John

The University Hospital of Somewhere Else

Babel: The Voices of a Medical Trauma

7 Comments / Stories / Tricia Pil

Editor’s Note: This week, on the eve of Pulse‘s second anniversary, we offer a remarkable piece. It is the true story of a hospitalization as told from three points of view: first, the recollections of the patient (who happens to be a physician); second, events as recorded in the medical charts by doctors and nurses; and third, the version put forth by the hospital.

FRIDAY

Patient:
It is fall 2005, and I am nine months pregnant. A healthy 33-year-old pediatrician, I am a longtime patient of Doctor A and Doctor B, who delivered my two young children at this hospital. My husband and I are eagerly anticipating the birth of our third child.
One evening after dinner, the contractions start coming every five minutes. My husband and I pack our bags and drive to the hospital. I am nearly 4 cm dilated. After observation, Doctor C calls Doctor A, makes a diagnosis of false labor and sends us home.

Chart:
9:25 pm: 33 year old gravida 3, para 2, 38 5/7 week seen in office this AM almost 3 cm. Negative PMHx, c/o contractions q 5 min. Cervix

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Sleep Hygiene

Stuck