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Scars
Editor’s Note: This piece was awarded an honorable mention in the Pulse writing contest, “On Being Different.”
In the summer between second and third grade, when I was eight, I first realized that it was safer for me to hide my surgical scars.
I had two huge scars starting at my hip joints and running halfway down my outer thighs. They were “Dr. Frankenstein” scars, with obvious cross-hatches that couldn’t be missed when I wore shorts or bathing suits.
That summer, my scars brought odd looks and comments from both children and adults.
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.
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.
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.
A Puzzling Impulse
Editor’s Note: This piece was awarded an honorable mention in the Pulse writing contest, “On Being Different.”
My mother has always advised me that it is good to be “different.” She herself, growing up, wanted to be different in both her personality and her fashion. But her wish to be unique is not something I’ve inherited.
Beginning in elementary school, the last thing I wanted was to be different from my school friends—in fact, I wanted to be them. This made things difficult, as I was the only brown person in my primarily white friend group.
A Time to Die?
I’ve always liked this hospital. It’s small, just two stories, with natural light flooding through the rain-cleansed windows.
My patient Ruby is on the ground-level medical ward. The ward’s Maori name, Muiriwai, means “confluent point of two streams.” Each ward has a Maori name and four beds. There are no private rooms in this public hospital.
Ruby is lucky to have a bed near the window.
My Invisible Illness
Growing up, I was a healthy child. I only went to the doctor for check-ups, vaccinations and school forms.
So when, at age fourteen, I woke in the middle of the night in excruciating pain and crawled into my parents’ bedroom to wake them to take me to the emergency room, I wasn’t prepared for what awaited on the other side of those sliding glass doors.
My experience was like a medical TV-show montage—bright lights, beeping monitors, medical professionals hovering over me and talking incomprehensible jargon, soft cries from patients in surrounding rooms, concerned looks on my parents’ faces.
Assistant Head Wrapper
Editor’s Note: This piece was awarded an honorable mention in the Pulse writing contest, “On Being Different.”
I’m an antique. I started working as a junior copywriter at Time in 1972. I was a token Jew, a token hippie and a token “female professional” among hordes of perky typists and preppy males. The executives wore Cartier cufflinks engraved with initials and numbers, like GSW III or CMJ IV. My bosses were George the Third and Christopher the Fourth, while I was J, the only.
A Phony Heterosexual
In my first year as a premedical student at the University of Rochester, I began working as an EMT (emergency medical technician).
I enjoyed the work, but my interactions with patients were necessarily fast-paced and fleeting. In September of my senior year, I explored a different side of medicine by volunteering at a local hospice house; there, engaging with patients and hearing their stories over time was a critical element of care.
Among the hospice patients, I connected especially to Jackson, a man in his sixties. Jackson’s voice, interests and punk style reminded me of my own grandfather, who had passed away just a year earlier.