cancer – Pulse

Not Knowing

Kay White Drew August 23, 2024 11 Comments

A few days after I’d rotated off the adolescent ward at the university hospital where I was a second-year pediatric resident, I stopped in at Billy’s room to see how he was doing. He was pale, with a few fresh bruises below the sleeves of his hospital gown, but his big brown eyes brightened when he saw me.

“Where’ve you been?” he asked.

“She had to go to work on another ward,” his mom said, rubbing his forearm gently. “I told you that, remember?”

Things I Did While Waiting for My Husband’s MRI to Happen

Alina Zollfrank May 17, 2024 12 Comments

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.

The Sturgeon

Patricia Massel May 3, 2024 2 Comments

Kind eyes, and a fragile body like a reed
Barely just a presence on the room, as if almost fading
Already into the twilight

Under gentle, careful hands
His body unveils its story with its familiar tells.
The slender wrists, childlike, beneath pitted skin.
Deeply scooped recess above collarbones.
A subtle, solid wedge of liver,
Looming ominously below ribcage.

Many Shades of Different

Cali Gaston April 23, 2024 18 Comments

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

Having stage IV cancer at twenty-one made me different from my peers.

I was already different: By the eighth grade, due to my mother’s quest for greener pastures, I’d attended twelve schools, many of them outside of the US. I was a Yankee when my family lived in Australia, but also when we lived in Florida. I was a gringa when we lived in Mexico, then in Peru. In places where English was spoken, I stood out because of my accent. In places where Spanish was spoken, although I became quite fluent, I was clearly a foreigner.

Don, 1979

Ann F. Beach March 29, 2024 17 Comments

It’s 3:00 am. Deep in the bowels of the hospital, bright fluorescent lights softly buzz overhead in the windowless snack bar, where a row of vending machines give off a low hum.

Don, my sixteen-year-old patient, and I sit huddled in orange plastic chairs at a tiny Formica table. He is ranting, and I am listening. Neither of us can sleep. Don is awake because he is mad at the world, and I’m awake because I’m the pediatric resident on call.

Our Shared Journey

Courtney Burnett March 12, 2024 6 Comments

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.

The Waiting Room

Michael Brown December 8, 2023 19 Comments

What happened to the fish
I ask the receptionist

The plastic seaweed was toxic
She replies with a shrug

So we sit and wait watching
A string of jeweled bubbles rise

To the surface
In the otherwise empty tank

His Mother’s Son

Minal Dhamankar November 14, 2023 15 Comments

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

On a crisp Saturday morning in October, I drove through the early morning fog to the salon for my regular hair-coloring appointment.

I looked forward to these appointments. The hour spent there was my “me” time, during which I enjoyed lighthearted conversations with my colorist, Tina, about movies or fashion while she did my hair. These chats, which took me to a different world—the world of normal people—were followed by a cup of rejuvenating herbal tea. After a hard week as an oncologist in a busy clinic, it was a welcome relief.

This time was different, however.

Kids Always Know

Nancy L. Glass September 1, 2023 17 Comments

This is a story about failures. First, it’s about my inability as a pediatric hospice physician to do the one most important job in this tender space. Second, it’s about well-meaning, loving parents’ inability to do their part in that job.

Jacob was a smart, funny, elementary-age kid, great with Legos.

Cultivation Also Starts With C

Jess Skyleson June 23, 2023 5 Comments

The eradication of non-native Fallopia japonica,
for all intents and purposes, must be considered a
practical impossibility. The aggressive nature of the
plant, combined with the similarly harmful side effects
of the removal options, renders it one of the most
devastating blights facing modern homeowners today.

Cancer Update Number 12 via YouTube

Julia Morris Paul March 31, 2023 4 Comments

He speaks of Kali maa, goddess of time
while chemo and radiation pin him to the clock.

As if confessing to a thievery of time,
when they neared one hundred years,

my parents said they never expected to live so long.
Their time unfolded like a painted fan.

Gift of Gratitude

Naveen Menon November 18, 2022 13 Comments

We all remember our patients who die, though the first patient death really stands out from the rest. This was certainly true for me.

I was just starting the second year of my internal-medicine residency. This wasn’t the first time I’d seen someone die, but it was the first time I’d seen someone who’d been alive and well, and talking to me that morning, be dead by the afternoon–a shocking dichotomy that haunts me to this day.

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

Tag: cancer

Not Knowing

Things I Did While Waiting for My Husband’s MRI to Happen

The Sturgeon

Many Shades of Different

Don, 1979

Our Shared Journey

The Waiting Room

His Mother’s Son

Kids Always Know

Cultivation Also Starts With C

Cancer Update Number 12 via YouTube

Gift of Gratitude

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

Tag: cancer

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