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Chemo Brain

Anne Webster February 3, 2017 11 Comments

Anne Webster

Since a doctor gave me poison pills that left
my heart a swollen slug, killed off my bone marrow,
set my lungs to clamoring, I can get brain-freeze
without eating a snow cone. When I walk
my neighborhood’s knotted streets, lost drivers
stop to ask directions. After thirty years, I know
the pretzel-turns, but when they motor off, I wonder,
Did I say left when I meant right? My husband
gets that look when words change lanes
without bothering to signal. Like soap bubbles
they pop from my mouth–“bird” for “tree,” “cat” for “dog.”

Perfect Timing

Linda Kobert December 23, 2016 5 Comments

Linda Kobert

Monday, 7:30 am, DR two. I’m circulating,
the nurse who isn’t sterile, the surgical team’s link
with the unclean world. Before the incision,
I have ten things to do. I keep the list in my head:
check suction, position lights, turn on Bovie, toe
the steel bucket next to the surgeon’s feet.

The scrub nurse and I do the count: sponges, needles, clamps.
I chart these numbers. Post op the count must match. I snag
the tips of the ties on the surgeon’s sterile gown. He spins

The Circulating Nurse Enters the Operating Room

Cortney Davis August 7, 2015 15 Comments

Cortney Davis

Let me not be blinded by the glare of the spotlight
or distracted by the tangle of plastic tubes,

the stink of anesthesia waiting in its multi-chambered
monolith of sleep. Let me stand beside the patient

and look into his eyes. Let me say, we will take care of you.
Let me understand what it is to be overcome by fear.

Let me secure my mask and turn to the counting and opening,
the writing down. Let me watch closely and, if I have to,

Imperfect Farewells

Judy Schaefer October 17, 2014 6 Comments

Judy Schaefer

I was not with my mother when she died, her heart bursting
against her ribs, screaming for a violent release from her chest
I listened, ear to phone: nothing-more-could-be-done
I recall her now, prayer petals of morning’s first red rose, the perfect
Mezzo-soprano of a summer evening’s lullaby, an open window to song
Clinical colleagues reported massive myocardial infarction
I reported that I was an orphan

Palliative Care

Stacy Nigliazzo March 8, 2013 No Comments

Stacy Nigliazzo

When I cut the stem
I knew it was just a matter of time.

I cleared the sill
and filled a crystal vase.

The petals unfurled.
The smell of summer pierced my skin

for three days.
When the first leaf fell

I added lemon pulp and crushed
an aspirin;

cut away all that waned–
the shoots were spry

one last day.
I scattered them over green earth.

Flecks of pollen
stained my lips and cheekbones.

About the poet:

Stacy Nigliazzo is an ER nurse. Her poems have appeared in Pulse, JAMA, Bellevue Literary

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Through a Hollow Tube

Jan Jahner July 29, 2011 No Comments

Jan Jahner

She carries forward the bundle like a giant fish
vacant eyes above wood-smoked plaid bathrobe
hook me as we unwrap his blue stillness
words swim upstream,
I am swallowed by a wave, standing by admissions, heading out to sea.

I left mine on the rug by her sister, curled in cartoons.
Room Four has a gurney and a chair
Stained, nail-bitten fingers slide through silky dark hair
She starts again, how the cabin was cold, how she wrapped him up tight
how he should be hungry, mine holds her bottle now.

One year out from nursing school in Adrenaline Heights
with minimal scales, I sink to the ocean bottom
dark in boulders and rust.
She starts again, how the cabin was cold, how she wrapped

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Pictures

Stephenie McKinnon April 15, 2011 No Comments

Stephenie McKinnon

He came to us leukemic listened carefully said his prayers took his meds showed us his
pictures: wife two kids dog cat baby’s first birthday talked about basketball and God and
anxiety and what it feels like to be hairless and a good patient
He came to us leukemic followed directions read his scriptures took his meds
showed us his pictures: wife three daughters hamsters the kids in matching
Easter dresses talked about running and heroes and how bored his children
would get when they would visit and what it feels like to be helpless and hungry
for food that “doesn’t drip”
He walked the halls daily

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Semi-Private Room

Jan Jahner November 19, 2010 No Comments

Jan Jahner

Sometimes nectar appears
when stories intersect:

I walk into the room
rearrange the bed-table
and push the pole with its bulging bladder sideways
for a closer look.

Her thinness triples the size of the bed
but her father, with his anxious chatter
feels strangely like my own
and her resolve, that tense control
has a familiar edge.

It feels like all the calories she’s ever counted
and all the sweet things resisted for the last eleven years
have aligned as a taut shield
protecting that juicy place that hasn’t ripened,
urged too early to carry her family through chaos:
after all, her mother was dying of cancer
after all, mine couldn’t manage mental illness
after all, aren’t fathers helpless in these things?

The

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Chirality

Stacy Nigliazzo August 27, 2010 No Comments

Stacy Nigliazzo

I see myself, always
through a stark looking glass

the fun house view of my own face
reflected in the eyes of my patients–

tangled in the bleeding strands
that line the gray sclera of the meth addict

drowning in the pooling ink that splits
the swelling pupil of the hemorrhagic stroke

swimming in the antibiotic slather
that blurs the newborn’s first gaze–

my clouded countenance,
ever present–

slipping even through parched flesh
along the steely glide of the angiocath

glistening in the fluid bag
of intravenous medication

glaring back
from the sliding metal siderail–

twelve hours streaming from my skin
like an open wound in the scrub sink

face to face
in the soap-splattered mirror–

only then,
do I look away.

About

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My Evidence

Cortney Davis November 6, 2009 No Comments

When I saw dust settling,

the road black and gritty,

and noticed the air
shimmering as it lowered closer to the earth

like a soft blanket suffocating
the damp September

mornings that had morphed seamlessly
into November’s

crowded table
of berries, sweets, and yellow corn,

just before the hospital
phoned to say that Mother had called my name,

familiar syllables
caught in her throat,

I’d already detected her leaving
in my own body

and so while she paused
at the end of her journey,

which was also the beginning,
I rushed to her,

hurrying
as

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Reference Range

Veneta Masson June 21, 2008 No Comments

Veneta Masson

Your tests show
the numbers 73, 90, 119 and 2.5,
the letter A,
the color yellow,
a straight line interrupted by a repeating pattern
of steeples and languid waves,
a gray asymmetrical oval
filled with fine white tracery,
35 seconds,
100 millimeters,
II.

I’m not sure what to make of these.
With the possible exception of II,
which like all Roman numerals
is subject to misinterpretation,
I see no cause for alarm.
I admit to a preference for low numbers,
the apothecary system over the metric
(my age, perhaps, and distrust of pure logic)
and the letter W,
though most of my colleagues favor
M.

I think you can be happy with yellow
and, based on my experience,
the fact

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Redesigning the practice of medicine

Pamela Mitchell May 7, 2008 No Comments

Pamela Mitchell

what if we went slowly thoughtfullyabout the business of healing
what if I bowedto you and you to mebefore we touched aching bodies
what if we saidout loudthisis sacred workmight I be madeworthy
what if I blessed your handsand you minebefore we began
repairingdeliveringdressinglistening to
broken bodieshungry souls

would we then returnto the placewhere so long agowe felt called
where we knew for sure thatwe did indeedhave hearts
hearts that beat confidentlyfullof ambition
hearts that were courageousenough to break
againand againand again
hearts that were not afraidto weep

at the sheer beauty offulminating organ
the raw painof splintered fracture
the howling lossof bodily movement

what if we were unafraid

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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: nurse poems

Chemo Brain

Perfect Timing

The Circulating Nurse Enters the Operating Room

Imperfect Farewells

Palliative Care

Through a Hollow Tube

Pictures

Semi-Private Room

Chirality

My Evidence

Reference Range

Redesigning the practice of medicine

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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: nurse poems

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