leukemia – Pulse

Thanksgiving 2023

Laura Fry November 22, 2024 15 Comments

It has been years, decades really, since I have watched television. I have the box, watch movies, but haven’t had cable ever. My two children were in first and second grade when I divorced their dad, and the house we moved into had no reception.

“Oh, well,” I told them, “no TV.” They were too little to grumble, but years later my daughter thanked me, saying, “We did so many other things.”

Now I find myself newly single and in transition for the winter, living in a rented house with—you guessed it—a TV with a full complement of channels and full reception.

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?”

Seated on My Hospital Bed

Dianne Silvestri December 24, 2021 No Comments

My seventh-floor window vibrates,
the room throbs in crescendo
as a rescue helicopter stitches
a curved seam across the sky
bound for Children’s Hospital.

Blue Book

Stacy Nigliazzo October 30, 2020 6 Comments

Days before she died

my mother stood in line,

took a picture for a passport—

Five Years to a Cure

Ellen Diamond August 24, 2012 No Comments

Ellen Diamond

Recently, while reading a post in an online chat group for people with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), I spotted an intriguing comment. At an important conference, a world-renowned hematologist had referred to a “five-year timeline” for a cure.

This took me back fourteen years, to when I’d just been diagnosed with CLL. There was a Gilda’s Club near my workplace; I’d always passed it quickly on my way home. Now I found myself stepping through the doorway to hear a top specialist talk about my disease.

I recall his closing words: “Give me five years, and I’ll give you a cure.”

As desperately as I wanted to

An Intern’s Guilt

Anna Kaltsas December 11, 2009 No Comments

Anna Kaltsas

“She’s been here for two months already. She’s very complicated; you’re going to be spending a lot of time with her and her family,” my fellow intern said as she began signing out her patients to me.

It was my first rotation in the medical intensive care unit, and I was terrified. I was in my first few months as a “real” practicing physician–a title that I still felt uncomfortable with. If a nurse called out “Doctor!” I wouldn’t respond, thinking that she couldn’t possibly be referring to me.

My fear mushroomed as my co-intern rattled off the patient’s problem list–bone-marrow transplant, shock liver, congestive heart failure, anemia, coagulopathy, sepsis, acute renal failure, ICU neuropathy, encephalopathy, ventilator-dependent…I knew what these meant, I

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: leukemia

Thanksgiving 2023

Not Knowing

Seated on My Hospital Bed

Blue Book

Five Years to a Cure

An Intern’s Guilt

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: leukemia

Thanksgiving 2023

Not Knowing

Seated on My Hospital Bed

Blue Book

Five Years to a Cure

An Intern’s Guilt

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