eyes – Pulse

The Kiss

Todd Farnsworth December 25, 2020 11 Comments

The year is 2015, and I’m on my thirteenth surgical mission, but my first to Venezuela. I am a plastic surgeon, traveling with a nonprofit that offers free plastic surgery for people with birth defects such as cleft lip. We’re making a two-week visit to the coastal city of Cumaná, 250 miles east of Caracas.

Halfway through our first day of surgery, I’m asked to come out to the waiting area to assess a young

Vision Quest

Alex Altman April 11, 2020 6 Comments

After finishing my third-year clinical rotations in medical school, I was feeling sleep-deprived and stressed out. The problem, I finally realized, was the ridiculous amount of pressure I’d put on myself to impress my attending physicians and get good grades.

My father is an ophthalmologist and cornea/cataract specialist. After routinely rejecting his career advice throughout my undergraduate years, I’d entered medical school–and, to my father’s delight, found myself increasingly fascinated by his field.

The Eyes Have It

Johanna Shapiro June 5, 2015 12 Comments

Johanna Shapiro

If you’re lucky
the doctor enthused
these drops will save your sight

Still trying to get my mind around
this new fact
that I was going blind
I asked about side effects

Hardly worth mentioning,
he said
his back already to me
as he noted in his chart
the decline and fall of my vision

Losing My Vision

Sheila Solomon Klass February 25, 2011 No Comments

Sheila Solomon Klass

Sunday, September 26 of this past year began normally enough. I did what I do every day, first thing: I put on my glasses and tested my vision. I’m eighty-three years old, and although I’ve always been nearsighted and have lived with glaucoma for thirty years, I’ve developed a worse complaint: AMD, age-related macular degeneration, in my left eye.

My ophthalmologist diagnosed the AMD after I told him that, when I was

Going Blind

Kirstyn Smith October 8, 2010 No Comments

Kirstyn Smith

I still dream Crayola:Scarlet, cherry, candy apple;
Zeus’ breath, Antiguan shallows, Atlantic turmoil, August twilight;
Green sings lime, martini olive, cypress, spring meadow, life.
When I woke up this morning, I wanted to turn over.
Of course, you feel the same way.

I had a dream about cleaning my fingernails. I had this beautiful, shiny silver file and I
could see the brown of the dirt. Peach, compost, and ivory. Each nail suffered

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: eyes

The Kiss

Vision Quest

The Eyes Have It

Losing My Vision

Going Blind

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: eyes

The Kiss

Vision Quest

The Eyes Have It

Losing My Vision

Going Blind

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