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Myrtle Beach
Babies are not made of plastic.
In both their distribution of mass and their texture, the feel is utterly different. Babies are warm and soft and plump and pink. Their heads are bowling balls.
New mothers are uncomfortably aware of this fact, as I’ve observed many times in my role as a pediatrician.
A Different Shade of Black
Editor’s Note: This piece was a finalist in the Pulse writing contest, “On Being Different.”
Ask any medical student what makes them unique among their peers, and you’ll almost certainly be treated to a two-minute answer that’s been rehearsed in countless mock interviews and essays as part of their preparations for residency applications.
It’s ingrained in the collective medical-student brain that to be recognized, we must stand out–constantly looking for opportunities to demonstrate our unparalleled competence.
The Battle of Britain
It was winter, and I’d been seeing Raymond in his home for occupational therapy for more than a month. The home health agency physician’s orders had been to evaluate and treat him for home safety, and I was working closely with the nurse and social worker from the same agency.
Unfortunately, the social worker and the nurse were at odds over the need for Raymond to move into a nursing home.
The facts were stacked against him.
I Can’t See Pictures in My Head
Editor’s Note: This piece was a finalist in the Pulse writing contest, “On Being Different.”
Visual imagination is like a superpower or a sixth sense: We take it for granted. On demand, we conjure up images of those we hold most dear: family, friends, our beloved pets. We envision people, places and things that we’d like to experience in the future. We revisit cherished memories simply by picturing them, essentially reliving them, all in our mind’s eye.
That is, unless you have aphantasia—like me.
The Dining-Room Caper
After fifteen years as a physical therapist in the long-term care industry, I’d vowed never again to get overly attached to a resident. Although I accepted my patients’ inevitable physical and cognitive declines, the deaths of those I had cherished took too much of an emotional toll: It felt like losing a grandparent, repeatedly.
Then William entered our facility.
The Difference
My patients do not speak. Or rather, my patients do not speak using words. Instead, they have taught me the art of body language—of noises, expressions and postures.
I read the movement of ears, the way pupils dilate or constrict. Watch for the tremors, for the hunch of a spine, for the described bows or stretches that could indicate abdominal spasm. Search for the hint of a leg being favored, for the inaudible signs of pain. Wait for tongues darting over lips. Offer food that may be sniffed at or turned away from. I’ve learned to respond to fear with gentleness, to preempt the sharpness of tooth or claw with slow movements.
Happiness Loves Company
I remember the first time I saw the gates of the Missionaries of Charity home for the destitute and dying, on the outskirts of my hometown, Pune, in western India.
I must have been nine or ten. To my annoyance, my parents had woken me early that Sunday morning to go with them to visit the home and bring donations of clothes and other necessities.
“How much longer, Papa?” I kept asking as we drove.
What’s Wrong With You?
Editor’s Note: This piece was awarded an honorable mention in the Pulse writing contest, “On Being Different.”
“What’s wrong with you?”
The words cut through my mind and hit me in the gut. My fragile fifteen-year-old ego splintered like a glass cup slipping through fingers onto hardwood.
Tears welled up, and my lips pursed, ready to respond. But I couldn’t find the words—for in that moment, I truly knew that I was broken, I was ugly, I was wrong. And even my mother knew it.
Things I Did While Waiting for My Husband’s MRI to Happen
1. Reread the stern words, hammered into a sterile printout. The scope results: a scythe. Images of an alien inhabiting his inner world.
2. Notice the footprints on our living-room floor. Briefly consider cleaning.
3. Three breaths later. Hug him. Hug the kids. Hug myself. Hug the dogs. Tilt my head when he says that he doesn’t want to hug right now.