grieving – Pulse

September Third Year

Anjali Jaiman September 13, 2024 11 Comments

Today a patient died. Jake was forty years old. When he came into the emergency room, Jake was dying of sepsis. I gave him some pain medication, and he just slipped away. I did try to save him. As his blood pressure dropped, I ran fluids and antibiotics. I put his head down to keep blood flowing to his brain. I ordered labs and an X-ray and an EKG.

I had taken care of Jake several times during his previous hospitalizations. He was sweet, but tired. He was blind from diabetes, and his irises were gray-white. I think he shut his eyes as he died, but I can’t quite remember.

Myrtle Beach

Sophia Gauthier June 28, 2024 5 Comments

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.

Dying Is Ugly

Henry Schneiderman February 4, 2022 15 Comments

Bang my shins, my temple on the gritty wall
Of Charlie’s deathbed
Where we do not wrest the truth
But beg him Let us change the (piss-stenched) sheets.
He will not go for tests, insists, denial overarching

Earth to Earth

Wynne Morrison March 26, 2021 4 Comments

You would have loved the simple maple box.
Corners smoothed and lid sealed tight,
we haven’t tried to pry it open yet.
It weighs more than I would have guessed,

Grieving in the Age of Zoom

Ethan Dmitrovsky March 2, 2021 9 Comments

Oncologists like myself are no strangers to death. It is all too familiar. We give our patients the best that medicine has to offer; we cure them if we can. When our efforts fail, we relieve their pain and ease their suffering. And when they pass away, we grieve. With their friends, colleagues, family members, partners and spouses, we grieve.

Almost by definition, a time of mourning is a time of gathering. Both to grieve and to console, we must be present with one another. I try to be there for my patients and their families and to answer all of their questions with candor and concern.

Aftermath

Jacqueline Pflaum-Carlson October 2, 2020 13 Comments

Drip.

It’s 8:00 pm.

I’m staring at the IV tubing. We forgot to stop the fluids.

I’m standing in the resuscitation room alongside the naked, broken body of a teenage male. Unable to break my gaze on that dripping IV line, thinking, We’re going to flood him.

Early Morning. Again

Gail benEzra July 17, 2020 4 Comments

I sit on the sofa,
alone in the sunroom,
stirring a cup of mocha-coffee,

Soon it turns cold.
Your mother’s quilt, an heirloom
pulled off our bed,

wraps my shoulders.
The corner touching my cheek
is soaked in wild grief,

What’s Left Over

Ruth Bavetta August 3, 2018 12 Comments

Ruth Bavetta ~

One and a half tubes of smörgåskaviar, most
of a jar of blueberry jam, a full jar of lingonberries.
Four sets of blue plaid pajamas–God forbid
I should have gotten him red. Six pairs
of reading glasses, going back
in five-year increments. Hearing-aid
batteries stashed by the lamp.
Three packages of adult diapers.
Our marriage certificate.
The rest of the morphine.

A Tingling Sensation

Mitch Kaminski March 23, 2018 10 Comments

Mitch Kaminski ~

It had been a hectic day in the urgent-care clinic of my large family practice, and I was starting to worry about the time: My last two patients had put me thirty minutes behind.

I felt relieved when I saw the note for the next patient: “Seventy-four-year-old female with UTI.”

A urinary-tract infection! This should be quick and uncomplicated….

I walked into the room to find a well-dressed older woman seated on the exam table. I had just enough time to wonder fleetingly, Why do some patients decide to wait on the exam table while others stay seated in the chair nearby? Then I turned my full attention to the woman before me.

Riven

Martha Carlough March 9, 2018 5 Comments

Martha Carlough ~

In medical school
I learned the particular sensitivity
of the breastbone

The rub of a knuckle
awakens even one deeply asleep
beckoning back to the present moment

Grief has the potential
to show us how cramped–
even deadened–we’ve become

Chest riven with pain
my fingers are now free
to explore the stories

Fear No Evil

Scott Janssen January 12, 2018 11 Comments

Scott Janssen ~

“You need to get here now!” The nurse whispers anxiously. It’s after midnight. One of our hospice patients has just died at home, and her husband is threatening to shoot himself when the funeral home shows up.

“Has the funeral home been called?” I ask.

“No.”

“Does he have a gun or weapon?”

“We’re out in the country. There are deer heads on the wall.”

I try not to stereotype, but deer heads are a giveaway. There are probably lots of guns.

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: grieving

September Third Year

Myrtle Beach

Dying Is Ugly

Earth to Earth

Grieving in the Age of Zoom

Aftermath

Early Morning. Again

What’s Left Over

A Tingling Sensation

Riven

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: grieving

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