A Therapeutic Belch
I lean over to auscultate, and you burp in my face. I recoil, a silent moment, then laughter erupts. For the first time since your diagnosis, light fills the room. Darkness driven out by burps and laughs.
Awaiting Answers
Her voice floats through the heavy hospital, your eyes find the sound. All your questions resurface, Did they get treatment? Are they recovering? Are they alive? Disappearing is hardly a proper bid of luck. She thanks you for your help, they have finally found answers. And you smile with joy, because you just received yours.
Best Kept Secret at PCH
Orange, blue, brown, pink- which slushy is the best? Ask the little boy who cannot walk. Too many pokes, pictures, tears and talks. No one knows why legs won’t move, test after test, nothing to prove. Questions linger, heavy, pressed. The only thing we truly know – Orange is the best.
Critical Care
Previously healthy, now severe lung disease Bilateral lung transplant with many complications Down to one lung, on ECMO, CRRT, feeding tube, tracheostomy… 81 days of Tubes, needles, catheters The same room, the same bed The blue army comes and goes every 12 hours But you… You stay. Always here Awake and trying to stay alive
French Braid
With lines keeping you bound, “I wish I could braid my hair,” uttered aloud. “I’ll do it,” I excitedly peal. Hair combed with fingers, no brush to be found. You sit stock still, staring at the ground. I finish the braid, you reach back to feel, “You couldn’t do a French braid? What’s the deal?”
Gloomy Grocery Shopping
38F, alcohol-related cirrhosis, worked at Smith’s. Transplant was her only hope, but was ineligible without family support. Asked me once if I’d brought her a cat. Laughed at her own confusion. Wondered why I looked sad. Nothing left to do – comfort care. Jaundiced, distended, peaceful. Me: angry, powerless. So young. On my mind at …
Hard to Swallow
We will take out part of your swallowing tube Your saliva will come out your neck Or we will borrow your chest muscle to cover the hole You will never lie flat again We are very excited about this option We think it will work In the workroom: I give him 2 weeks Shame he’s …
Hospital Horses
We clomp across tiled floors, I giggle. The white coat feels presumptuous, But these dorky clogs? Bona fide with old blood dried. Be nonchalant, but not too. Stomachs growl, Hour 4 of rounds (Yes, it’s internal medicine). But my feet? They’re golden in these thrifted Danskos. So, we trot on, In our hospital band of …
How I Met My GI
During an IBD lecture, the Crohn’s symptoms sounded TOO familiar. Me: “ Hey, I know med students always think they have what they’re studying, but here’s my HPI.” Professor: “Uh oh, you better come see me in clinic. —Sent from my iPhone” And that’s how my med school professor performed my diagnostic colonoscopy.
How to Say “I Love You” in Medicine
Have you eaten? I brought you water. Wrap yourself in this warm blanket. Give me your pager, go take a walk. We are in this together. I won’t leave you alone. You’ve done hard things before, you can get through them again. I can see how hard you work. Do you want to talk?
I said I would never be grateful for this.
12 funerals in 3 years. My friends and family. And only now I realize that the anguish I’ve carried, like a heavy bag of sand, has made me strong. Able to lift a burden or sit in the ashes with strangers turned patients. I know the value of silence. I know the value of grief.
In Their Names
She was forty-eight, just like my father It was colon cancer, just like my father In the quiet of hospice, she faded, just as he did Suddenly, I was thirteen again Heartbroken again Their memory is my armor …and as a future oncologist, every life I touch will honor their names
Internal Medicine
“Grammy died.” How? “The doctor said her insides stopped working.” … What kind of explanation is that? Next week, 30 year old passes away from liver failure. Goals of care discussion leads to comfort measures. Neutropenic patient dies en route to the ICU. I guess what better explanation is there: Their insides stopped working.
Interpreter Services
Where is the iPad? The nurses shrug. We just take the vitals without it. The room is dark, a face covered in blankets. “Hola! Me llamo Anna, como se siente?” I dial the interpreter. A sweet, 92 year old smile peeks through the covers, lighting up the room. Language heals.
Quiet Please, Healing in Progress
CRASH! BOOM! VRRRRRRRRRRR. Day four of construction on D50. “I’m so sorry ma’am, your blood pressure is too low to keep you here. We need to transfer you to the ICU.” “Is it quieter over there?”
She is Beauty, She is Grace
It’s quiet, unseemingly supportive, safe. In the chaos of the wards, when I cannot find a role to slink into as a student, or when I cannot find my resident, it is the solace of the bathroom I seek. The porcelain throne is my reprieve, two games of Rummikub my medicine.
Stay
I meet her in fluorescent light Hands trembling, story frayed In her eyes I see my brother The ghost of what addiction stole Grief smolders in my chest Frustration follows Rounds looming, expectations pulling Shared pain tells me linger So I stay Listen longer than expected Hear her Hoping to offer what I once couldn’t …
The Origin of My Céline Dion Playlist
12:36 AM. G0P1, her mom, her sister, her husband. “The Power of Love” blares in the background. She’s the entire birth playlist. I have never laughed more with strangers. They welcome my intrusion into their little family. Her dad passed, I hear all about him. I help deliver their little girl, then save the playlist.
The Peds Ward
The room is dark, a movie on – the little boy’s awake. His dad is there, glued to his side, and grabs my hand to shake. They’re tired, they’re worn, they’re sleep-deprived, and joy is overdue, But both look up with gratitude for all that we’ve been through.
The Recipe of One
The clinic list was flavorless rules and sugar-free silence. “Mija”, she sighed, “Everything I love is forbidden”. We sat together, reshaping her day. Not five tortillas, but one. A smaller scoop of rice but keeping the spice. We wrote a list that tasted like home. In that room, my heritage was the medicine. A quiet …
Touching (Snow) Grass
“Ready?” “Ready.” One bucket, two skis, four poles. “Beautiful day!” Sunshine on fresh snow. “Here’s the hill, speed control incoming.” Together we go down the hill, whooping and hollering as we pick up speed despite my best snowplow. “That was great! One more lap?” I say. “Let’s do two!” He shouts back, smiling.
Tough?
1 “I’m good at handling tough situations,” I reassure her – and myself – when my friend laments the trauma of critical care. Hubris carried me into the ICU. Day after day, I saw the life swept from people I had come to love? I wondered whether I needed to work on setting boundaries with …
Transference
34 years old. Unknown WPW. Anoxic brain injury. Baby on the way. Wife performed CPR until EMS arrived. He looks like my husband. Brown eyes, beard, hair. Too tall for the bed. We just got married. I’m new here, this still gets to me. Even when I’m old here, I hope this gets to me.
Trust
“You won’t be injecting anything into our baby!” shouted the 37-week mother in labor. “I don’t trust you doctors and your vaccine propaganda!” “My baby will develop natural immunity.” *** *** *** “Wait! Why is my baby going to the NICU?!” “Why is her head bulging and why is she so weak?!” “Please! Save her!” …
Untitled II
I pass out easily: In a stifling turtleneck on IM rounds, In the OR the day after a bout of norovirus, After stubbing my toe on the scrub machine. No one escapes medical training unscathed by embarrassment. A good sense of humor makes it survivable. So I’ll laugh and try not to faint tomorrow.