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Fighting the Odds
Evelyn Lai ~
Monday
I walk into your room in the pediatric intensive-care unit as two nurses are repositioning you. Your parents stand nearby–your dad in his frayed baseball cap and khaki cargo shorts; your mom, her baggy jeans wrinkled with the same worry as the lines near her eyes. Your little sister sits near the window with a blue hospital mask over her mouth, hugging her knees; Grandma sits snug beside her, back straight and hair done, expression cordial.
You are a fifteen-year-old boy with leukemia who came into our emergency department last week with fevers, but spiraled quickly into septic shock with multiorgan failure.
Cri de Coeur
Naderge Pierre ~
As a surgical resident nearing my final year of training, I loved to operate. Whenever I was on call in the trauma unit at our large urban teaching hospital in Washington, DC, I’d yearn for my pager to go off.
I was always tired, too–but for a surgical resident, fatigue is a given. Sleep and eat when you can, get your work done and operate like a madwoman: That was my life. It felt like a high-adrenaline thrill ride, and I was enjoying every swoop and turn.
I never expected that, while racing towards the final exhilarating peak of my training, I would become a patient myself.
Ironically, it happened right after the most memorable surgery of
Lean on Me
Joseph Fennelly ~
One morning in my office, a tall, slim package arrives along with a note, a portion of which follows:
Dr. Fennelly,
I can’t apologize enough for not getting your walking stick back sooner. Since my dad’s passing we have had to move my mother (who has a memory problem) several times, and with each move the walking stick moved too.
In some ways it reminded me of my dad and the relationship you and he had. It was comforting for him and us to know he had you in his corner to lean on and support him.
Why Aren’t You Depressed?
Tess Timmes ~
“Please walk slowly,” cautioned Sunita, my interpreter, as I crept down the stony switchback trail towards the rural Nepali village of Dhulikhel. Sunita, in her petite navy ballet flats, hopped down the rocks as easily as the speckled goats grazing nearby.
Emboldened by her speed, I stepped along eagerly, only to catch my size-ten neon running sneaker on a root and splat face-first into the dust. Looking up, I saw four women standing outside their clay-walled homes, their hands pressed to their mouths, their eyes sparkling with stifled laughter. Talk about making an entrance….
After finishing my third year of medical school, I was taking a year off to pursue my masters degree in public health. Through my research
Too Close for Comfort
Andrea Eisenberg ~
Many years ago, on a busy day in my obstetrics-and-gynecology office, one of my partner’s patients came in for “bleeding, early pregnancy.” Since my partner wasn’t in that day, I saw the woman, whose name was Sarah. After we’d talked a bit, I examined her and did an ultrasound. As I’d expected, she was having a miscarriage. Feeling sorry that Sarah had to hear it from me, rather than from her own doctor, I broke the sad news.
We discussed the options: Did she want to have a D&C, or let nature take its course?
“I’m not sure,” she said. “I need some time to decide.” I agreed that this was understandable and left the room so that she
Cat and Mouse
Kristen Lee ~
On TV shows, therapists decorate their rooms with leather lounge chairs, throw pillows and organza curtains that let in the light.
But Dr. Hassan’s office is in the clinic basement. The fluorescent lighting is sterile. She has a gray metal desk–I think every doctor I’ve shadowed as a medical student has had that same desk.
But I’m not here as a student.
I’ve been anticipating this appointment for a month. In March, I started to take an online physiology exam for school, but instead spent twenty minutes staring motionless at the computer screen. I eventually input the answers and passed the test, but I’d stopped caring.
A week later, I had a panic attack while riding the
Mom at Home
Arlen Gargagliano ~
Aisha is lurking in the kitchen just outside my home-office door. I hear her rattling dishes and speaking to herself in Twi, a language of her native Ghana. I know that she wants my attention, but I’ve told her that I need time to work. I try to focus on grading my college students’ papers, but I’m distracted.
Aisha is one of my mother’s aides. My mother requires care twenty-four/seven, and Aisha is one of several women, primarily foreign-born, who care for her in shifts. Mom’s had this arrangement since 2012, when several ministrokes disabled her brain and self-care abilities, and a broken leg left her mostly bedbound. My father’s recent death, ending their marriage of more than five decades,
Coming Up Short
Meghan G. Liroff ~
“Why so short?” says the four-year-old girl who’s here with an upper-respiratory infection.
Standing safely between her dad’s knees, she wears a bright pink jumpsuit. Her cheeks are dimpled; her hair is piled in a frizzy bun. She looks me up and down, as if trying to make sense of me.
I can’t help laughing.
It’s true, I think. At five feet even, I’m not blessed with height–but I make up for it in chutzpah. I squat down to bring my eyes level with hers.
“I’m not laughing at you,” I reassure her. “I’m just laughing because you picked up on a major thread in my life.”
Out of the Blue
Marianna Crane ~
As I sit in the exam room waiting for my first patient of the afternoon, the phone rings. It rings four more times before I realize that Amanda Ringwald, our eighty-year-old receptionist, hasn’t come back from taking a rare lunch break.
I pick up the phone and say, “VA Hospital. Marianna Crane.” Oops, I’m not back at the VA anymore. “Senior Clinic,” I quickly add.
“Hello, my friend.”
The familiar voice makes my throat tighten and my eyes water. How in God’s name did he track me down at work?
“Mr. Foley. How are you?”