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A Brush With the Beast
It all begins one Sunday morning when Mrs. Morris, a 75-year-old retiree with a heart condition, trips on her way out of church. She falls flat on the sidewalk, can’t get up, and ends up in our Bronx emergency room. A CT scan shows a pelvic fracture, and she’s admitted to our inpatient team.
When I join the family medicine residents to see Mrs. Morris the following day, she can’t get out of bed. She’s got short, unruly white hair and a gee-whiz expression that charms us. “What a pain!” she says. Given how close she lives to the brink–terrible circulation has cost her one heart attack and several toe amputations–I’m impressed with her good cheer.
Things looks promising. Follow-up studies confirm that the
The Pencil Man of Western Boulevard
Paula Lyons
His history was Dickensian. As a little boy, born with an IQ of about 80 and a wandersome nature, he’d toppled onto the train tracks and gotten run over. How he didn’t die is a mystery–this was more than fifty years ago, and he lost both legs up to his hips–but live he did.
I met him in the hospital, where he’d had surgery on the pressure sores that came from long hours perched in a wheelchair. When I asked him to roll over so I could see, he hoisted his whole body (200 pounds without legs!) out of the bed via the orthopedic trapeze. His arms were massively strong, his disposition was sweet, and he spoke and behaved like a well-mannered six-year-old.
Mothers and Meaning
“Dr. Scott, this is Dr. Font.” The call came from my mother’s cardiologist as I was about to see my first patient of the morning. “Your mother is worse. You’d better come as soon as you can. I don’t think she’ll survive the day.” Those blunt words shattered my denial: I had convinced myself that it was possible to fix the cumulative, lifelong damage wreaked on my mother’s heart by her atrial septal defect, a congenital condition.
My War Story
Marc Tumerman
My practice is in a small rural Wisconsin town just down the road from a large military base. I see soldiers pretty regularly these days; they stay here for several weeks of pre-deployment training before shipping off to Iraq. They come from all over the country–men and women of various ages, some single, some married and with families. Their health-care needs aren’t too different from those of my civilian patients: maternity care, chronic illness management and the usual scrapes and bruises. I like having them on my schedule; their Boston accents and Georgia drawls make a pleasant change from my neighbors’ familiar, made-for-radio Midwestern monotone.
I don’t dwell much on what these soldiers do for a living. I do my best to take
Aunt Helen Sees a Ghost
Five months ago my husband and I moved from Manhattan to Queens to take care of his 84-year-old aunt, who has Alzheimer’s. Although she can’t cook, shop, or manage her money anymore, Helen is remarkably functional in her own home. She’s lived here almost forty years, more than half of them alone, as a widow.
Well Baby Check
I get to clinic early today, undaunted by the double- and triple-bookings in my schedule. “We have a baby coming today,” I tell the medical assistant. “A new baby. Six pounds. Born yesterday. Bring him right back when he comes.”