The In-Between
In that space between the knowing and the not knowing, that mezzanine containing neither a safe room nor a hall of horrors, within that space the fear took on a life of its own.
Powerless
“I know it wasn’t really your fault, but I blame you on some level,” said my patient Aisha, sounding husky over the phone. “I’m working on forgiving you, but I’m not there yet.”
Tears sprang to my eyes, but I kept my voice steady as I replied, “I understand. I’m sorry about my role in what happened. Please let me know if you ever feel ready to come back to see me, but I can refer you to another doctor in the meantime.”
What had I done to deserve such harsh words? I hadn’t prevented her traumatic childbirth experience.
Self Treatment
His broad, open smile met me as I walked into the exam room. I noticed his feet didn’t quite reach the floor, and he was wearing sandals. His feet were wide and squarish, the type of feet one would get from going barefoot their entire life. The type of feet my yoga teacher always asked us to emulate with toes spread wide and space between each digit.
Our Shared Journey
Editor’s Note: This piece was awarded an honorable mention in the Pulse writing contest, “On Being Different.”
It took a terrifying and life-changing experience of being different for me to realize a fundamental truth: I’m the same as everyone else.
This truth has redefined my goals and reshaped the way I practice medicine.
At age twenty-nine, during my third and final year of internal-medicine residency, I received a diagnosis of a rare and malignant brain cancer called anaplastic astrocytoma. Quite suddenly, I was different.
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ICU Surprise!
It was 7:15 on a Tuesday morning. What kind of a Tuesday morning, I could not say. How would I know? There are no windows on 8 North, the adolescent ward at Bellevue Hospital, where I was spending my first month as an intern. There could have been a hurricane outside for all I knew.
What I did know was that in about fifteen minutes a pack of fresh, smiling faces would be arriving, and one of them would bring me breakfast: a toasted bagel with cream cheese and coffee. The long night (or should I say nightmare) was ending, and I could look forward to an easy eight remaining hours of work and then sleep, blissful sleep.
There Wasn’t a Biopsy
During dinner with an oncologist friend, she noticed a lump at the front of my neck. “Likely a thyroid cyst,” she said, “nothing to worry about,” and explained that an ultrasound would differentiate a cystic from a solid lesion.
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The Sounds of Inclusion
Editor’s Note: This piece was awarded an honorable mention in the Pulse writing contest, “On Being Different.”
The whir of a drill. Loud smacks from a hammer. Tools scrape and scratch the floor as they’re shuffled across it.
To you, these may seem like the sounds of nondescript carpentry work; maybe a remodel happening in a neighboring apartment. But as I sit at my desk in my medical school’s laboratory, listening to that carpentry symphony two lab benches away, I hear the sounds of inclusion.
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Deceiving Patients to Dampen Pain: A Chinese Family’s “Good Lie”
It had been a long time since I’d seen my grandmother. I was seventeen and traveling to Shanghai, where she resided. My grandmother had helped raise me. All throughout my childhood, she and I would share a feast of foodstuffs, their scalding scents curling through the house. In the afternoons, we would scamper down winding forest trails. This was how I remembered her: vigorous, strong. Now, years later, entering her Shanghai apartment, I noticed the unfamiliar way she hunched into herself. Her sunken cheeks. Her body stiff and frail, almost shaking.
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Positive
Thirty-two years ago, I was the mom of a toddler and a baby. I’d found a spot above my left eyebrow that hadn’t healed and that was itchy. I went to a dermatologist (that’s another story) and had a biopsy. A couple of weeks later, a message was left on my answering machine: The biopsy was positive; the lesion was skin cancer.
Waiting
A good imagination can be an asset but also a liability. I first discovered that fact in 1974, when I found a lump on my left breast. Three more lumps—another on my left breast and two on my right—reinforced my belief that my creative mind could be my most formidable foe.