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

The Mango Tree, Reimagined

About the Artwork

“When I was in my early twenties I was a Peace Corps volunteer and lived in a small African village. Along with everyone else, I spent a lot of time sitting in the shade of a mango tree, waiting. Waiting for the heat of midday to pass, for the annual rains to hopefully arrive, for something (please, anything!) to appear on the crest of the hill at the edge of the village. Living with a serious chronic illness is rife with uncertainty, and again, my life seems to involve a lot of sitting and waiting for things over which I have no control. Waiting to see if the latest medications help, if my lungs continue to fail, if I need a new pair of lungs, if a new pair of lungs will be available…Sometimes I feel like I’m back under the mango tree.”

Rachel Alt is a new Pulse contributor. “Writing, be it journal entries or cringe-worthy poems, has always been how I have processed my experiences and feelings, but I have not done much writing about my own illness. Having never picked up a paintbrush and craving a new experience, I recently took an online watercolor class. I was sure that I would be whimsically splashing down images of gauzy sunsets and fluffy clouds in no time. And yet once the class ended what keeps coming out are, in fact, images of my own illness. It’s been deeply, strangely satisfying.”

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