fostering the humanistic practice of medicine publishing personal accounts of illness and healing encouraging health care advocacy

fostering the humanistic practice of medicine publishing personal accounts of illness and healing encouraging health care advocacy

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A Different Kind of Different

Editor’s Note: This piece was a finalist in the Pulse writing contest, “On Being Different.”

Every parent likes to think their child is one in a million. What if you’re the parent of an individual who is more like one in 326 million?

Society in general has started to be more cognizant of disabilities—some disabilities more than others. For instance, Down syndrome awareness and acceptance has excelled in the past several years, and schools have made efforts to teach inclusion and acceptance of students with special needs.

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The Real Me

Editor’s Note: This piece was a finalist in the Pulse writing contest, “On Being Different.”

“What are you?”

It’s impossible to count the number of times I’ve been asked this question, directly or indirectly.

When my family moved to Milwaukee from the South, I was twelve.

One day soon after, I was digging in my locker at Audubon Middle School when a girl named Tammy walked up to me.

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Breathless

Editor’s Note: This piece was a finalist in the Pulse writing contest, “On Being Different.”

I was a disaster in fourth grade—too chubby for my Girl Scout uniform, which gapped where it should not have gapped. I dragged my right foot, so I wore orthopedic shoes. My horn-rimmed glasses made me look like a sixtysomething church lady. My jet-black hair with five cowlicks had been partially tamed with a beauty-shop permanent. I was the last chosen for red rover and other recess favorites.

Ten-year-olds know when they are different from their peers. I didn’t want to be different and felt self-conscious. Then came the coup de grâce.

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Going It Alone

Editor’s Note: This piece was a finalist in the Pulse writing contest, “On Being Different.”

Loneliness can creep up on you like a phantom, slipping its cold hand into yours and offering companionship that is both depressing and alluring—particularly when, looking around, you see nobody else whose face mirrors your own.

It was my first day of residency at a top pediatric program in Boston—a predominantly white program catering to a predominantly white patient population in a predominantly white city.

Scanning the room, I realized that, for the next three years, I would be the only Black person among some thirty-five residents.

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Finding the Upside

Editor’s Note: This piece was a finalist in the Pulse writing contest, “On Being Different.”

Being different is often viewed as bad. At a young age, I learned that it meant you didn’t belong. I vividly remember watching the Sesame Street puppets dance and sing about an object that “didn’t belong” because it was “not like the others.”

Throughout my school years, I tried hard to fit in. Being overweight, and as uncoordinated as they come, I constantly felt out of place in my body and among my peers. I remember trying so hard to make people laugh, to win them over.

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A Little Bit of Lagniappe

Editor’s Note: This piece was a finalist in the Pulse writing contest, “On Being Different.”

Throughout my pediatrics clerkship as a third-year medical student, I resisted the urge to say “sha.”

“Sha,” as in “Sha baby,” “Oh sha,” or “Come here, sha.” “Sha,” a term of endearment, an instinctive utterance at the sight of something cute—for example, all of my patients in the newborn nursery. “Sha,” a word from Acadiana, a word that only people from Acadiana use.

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Next of Kin

Editor’s Note: This piece was a finalist in the Pulse writing contest, “On Being Different.”

The Early Nineties

A number of things happened the moment I realized I was gay. From the moment I came out to myself and to those around me, I felt the scales fall from my eyes. The sky was brighter, the air crisper. I felt free, excited by the world and all it had to offer.

How could it have taken forty-four years to work this out? I kept asking myself.

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One Person at a Time

Editor’s Note: This piece was awarded an honorable mention in the Pulse writing contest, “On Being Different.”

By medical-student standards, I’m old.

While it’s increasingly common for applicants to take one, two or even three gap years between college and medical school (usually to do research or engage in an activity to be featured in their application), taking ten years off, as I did, is unusual. I fondly refer to this hiatus as my “gap decade.”

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New Normal

Editor’s Note: This piece was a finalist in the Pulse writing contest, “On Being Different.”

When I finally got to take my newborn son home, after an almost six-week stay in the NICU, the social worker said, “You will be his advocate. You will know him better than anyone. And you will find your new normal.”

My son’s diagnosis was that he would never walk or talk. After his brain MRI, I felt that the hospital staff looked at us differently. My son’s life—and, by extension, our lives—would be different.

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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.

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Small but Mighty

Editor’s Note: This piece was awarded an honorable mention in the Pulse writing contest, “On Being Different.”

I was born with what was described as a “mild” case of achondroplasia, a genetic condition that affects bone growth and causes short stature.

The average height of an adult female with achondroplasia is 4 feet 1 inch; I am 4 feet 5 inches tall. I do not have some of the “characteristic” facial features such as a prominent forehead or flattened nasal bridge. The average person remains unaware of my condition until I stand up.

This condition does not run in my family.

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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.

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