An Artistic Voice for the Healing Arts - Medical literary Messenger - Volume 2, No. 1 | Fall 2014
←
→
Page content transcription
If your browser does not render page correctly, please read the page content below
Medical literary Messenger
An Artistic Voice for the Healing Arts
Volume 2, No. 1 | Fall 2014
Published in Association with Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine
www.med-lit.vcu.edu
Photo by Michael P. Stevens, MD, MPH (page 19)
Medical literary Messenger IN THIS ISSUE
An Artistic Voice for the Healing Arts ARTWORK
O
ur adventure with the Medical Literary Messenger Venus
continues. We received the largest number of submissions
FICTION
to date and have selected a collection of essays, poems and images
Anne Spollen
that represent both the depth and creativity in which we hope to
observe and understand the experience of medicine and disease. NONFICTION
Rob Cook
Without you, both the readers and contributors of the Medical
Literary Messenger, the whole of the project would be less than the Lizabeth Berkeley
sum of its parts. Jacqueline Kirkpatrick
Gonzalo Bearman, MD
Editor in Chief Claude Clayton Smith
POETRY
EDITORIAL BOARD Cathleen Calbert
Gonzalo Bearman, MD, MPH.......................................................... Editor in Chief
Kate Peterson
Brie Dubinsky....................................................... Production Editor, Web Designer
Celeste Lipkes, MFA, M2..................................................................Student Editor Catherine Harnett
Michael P. Stevens, MD, MPH..............................Associate Editor of Photography
Molly Lazer
Rachel F. Van Hart...................................Managing Editor, Design & Copy Editor
REVIEWERS FOR THIS ISSUE: Brittany Allen; Caroline Bivens; Patricia W. William Miller
Dodson, RN, BSN, MA; Maia A. LaVallee, MS; Kathy Kreutzer, M.Ed; Laurie J.
C.I.L.
Lyckholm, MD; Jean M. Rabb, RN, BSN
dl mattila
SUBMISSIONS: The Medical Literary Messenger encourages sub- Sea Sharp
missions from the VCU Community and from authors outside the organization •
All submissions should be made electronically through our online submission page, Joanna White
www.med-lit.vcu.edu/submissions.html • Submissions may be printed anonymously
at the author’s request • The Medical Literary Messenger does not provide payment PHOTOGRAPHY
for works published in the journal • Copyright reverts to the author upon publication
Alexander Schloe
• The observations and opinions expressed by the contributors to Medical Literary
Messenger are not necessarily those of the editorial board nor Virginia Common- Michael P. Stevens, MD, MPH
wealth University School of Medicine • Submissons for spring are accepted
December to mid-March; submissions for fall from June to mid-August.
Medical literary Messenger Fall 2014 | page 2
An Artistic Voice for the Healing Arts
Quiet Please Sickness
So reads the sign Talk softly. Let us dream.
on the small lawn of a house If I never return, will someone
where the hedges have been trimmed please check on my husband?
to within an inch of their lives See, my own man’s home
and a prized objet d’art, with pain and morphine as I fly
some vague aquatic animal, is shown up 95, pass your eloquent plea,
off in the sole “picture window.” then make students produce
I’m on my way to teach, not thinking yet another poem. Today
much except I don’t want to live here, we’re doing Sound and Sense.
don’t want bars on my door, Next week: Line and Space.
don’t want to worry my pipes
By Cathleen Calbert
might be ripped free in the night.
Though I don’t sneer at the sign,
I don’t slow down either,
just mutter, “Good luck,” because,
sure, those bullies with a bellyful
will muffle their El Caminos,
not bellow at their equally
pissed off wives to open up
the goddamned door already,
bottles will roll on cotton, children
sing only inside their heads, not in
creepy little screeches, even the sun
will set gently on this city street.
Oh, dear deluded caretaker,
don’t you know the world
doesn’t hush? Won’t slow down,
even for Death, who always
unkindly stops for us,
but throbs on, raucous and oblivious?
Life’s the guy at Roger Williams Park
polishing his chrome while a boom-box
pounds the very rocks and trees.
But I get your message, friend.
I can see my own signs:
Cathleen Calbert’s writing has appeared in many publications, including The New Republic, The New York Times, and The Paris
Review. She is the author of three books of poetry: Lessons in Space, Bad Judgment, and Sleeping with a Famous Poet. She has been
awarded The Nation Discovery Award, a Pushcart Prize, and the Mary Tucker Thorp Award from Rhode Island College, where she is a
Professor of English.
Medical literary Messenger Fall 2014 | page 3
An Artistic Voice for the Healing Arts
Helping a seven year old
with inoperable brain cancer
write a poem for her sister
She said orange was like
a door hinge. She said
it wasn’t so hard, but
I still couldn’t find
words for this.
Sometimes even the perfect sound
doesn’t quite say it. Sometimes
you can only cry in your sleep.
You wake wondering
why you can’t feel when you’re supposed to
or what the sister will say that first night
she stays up late talking to a boy
and he asks her how it felt
when they folded up the hospital bed
and wheeled it away. He will never understand her
and this is what she will like about him.
I go for walks alone through leaves
their death is so beautiful
piling up orange and loud
lifting in the road as cars pass.
Sitting with this child
it’s as clear as anything
I’ve ever seen, the separation
between body and soul.
She said orange was like
a door hinge. I told her that was perfect.
By Kate Peterson*
* Author’s note, page 17
Medical literary Messenger Fall 2014 | page 4
An Artistic Voice for the Healing ArtsAsking My Liver for Forgiveness
By Rob Cook approaching winter. Once I eliminated self at certain times of day and in odd
the sugar, the trans fats, the laughing angles of the mirror where no obvi-
A
fter a subtly disturbing, two- foods, I started feeling better. ous thing survives. Often I would go
month illness of fatigue, de- A month went by. I ignored the fre- searching for evidence of jaundice and
pression, creepy psychological quent need for naps as nothing more return to my delusion of health, con-
states, psychotic rage, and tickles of than an unresolved insomnia. I went vinced my eyes were perfectly white,
low-grade nausea, I woke up the morn- to my gym once or perfectly clear.
ing after Thanksgiving, 2013, with an twice and wondered “Often I would go The next day I
itchy chest and abdomen. My immedi- why my normally
searching for evidence made an appoint-
ate, pre-conscious reaction: liver is hurt, pale skin looked like ment with Dr. Laura
dead in six months. a Chinese tan in the of jaundice and return Rice at the Beth Isra-
It was impossible. There couldn’t be weight room’s man- el Clinic on E. 34th
to my delusion of
anything wrong with my liver. Not after datory row of mir- Street. Upon seeing
a lifetime shunning alcohol, drugs, and rors. I also discovered health, convinced my me, the first thing she
for the last few years, even sugar and a YouTube video of said, with an almost
eyes were perfectly
white bread. My only transgression was the prog rock band maternal, protective
the Paxil and Zyprexa I’d taken at low Porcupine Tree per- white, perfectly clear.” tone, was, “Oh, you
doses for thirteen years during which forming “Arriving do look very yellow.”
my psychiatrist never once ordered or Somewhere But Not Here,” a song The initial blood tests confirmed a
even suggested blood tests to check liv- whose sound and moodscapes of gen- malfunctioning liver: ALT and AST
er function. tleness and ferocity alternated like the levels in the thousands—normal is be-
I spent the morning searching my- harsh voids and harsher dispatches be- tween fifteen and fifty-eight U/L. My
self in the mirror for warnings from my tween blood tests that would become bilirubin was nearly ten times normal,
liver and gave up, having found noth- commonplace soon enough. The song, giving itself away in my newfound Ba-
ing. The itching came and went. I was over twelve minutes in duration and nana Beast anti-glare.
much more sensitive to salt and could haunted with all the voices of my liver’s The night after I learned exactly
not indulge in my characteristic glut- hidden fears and melancholy, became, how high my enzyme levels were—and
tony at my parents’ dinner table. At one on the spot, the definitive song of my the wow-filled person who gave me the
point I got up from my chair, went to early 40s. numbers over the phone seemed thrilled
the living room, sat down and practi- Again at my parents’ house in north- about it—I started having night sweats.
cally listened to my eyes turning yellow, west Jersey, I felt more sympathetic to- Each morning I woke up drenched and
though later I still could not see any ward Christmas than in recent years. freezing. I thought I might have con-
jaundice in the mirror. True to form, I attached no significance tracted HIV seventeen years prior, be-
Instead of immediately schedul- to this, no sense of the body knowing fore meeting Stephanie and now it was
ing a doctor’s appointment, I retreated what was to come. This sense of securi- turning into AIDS, as night sweats are
into denial and rationalization. I pro- ty did not last because, upon returning a symptom and I hadn’t been screened
crastinated, changed my diet. I had to Manhattan via train, my girlfriend, for HIV since 1994. I was tested on
been indulging in, after a long, self-im- Stephanie, noticed, in the unforgiving the day of New Years Eve for hepa-
posed sugar famine, cinnamon buns, ice fluorescence of the car, that my eyes titis A, B, and C, terrified that I had
cream sandwiches, and peanut M&Ms were yellow, something I’d missed be-
to ward off the monsters of another cause the yellow only announces it- Continued, next page
Medical literary Messenger Fall 2014 | page 5
An Artistic Voice for the Healing ArtsContinued from page 5 “No one knew what was destroying my liver.
contracted, somehow, hepatitis B or C, They just assured me that yes, it was being destroyed
which Dr. Rice said were “epidemic” and yes, it would fail sooner than later and my only hope
and could be passed on without syringes
or, somehow, even sex. I researched and would be an eventual transplant.”
prepared a strategy should I be diag-
nosed with the unthinkable. I called a gency room ASAP. I had, according to the antechamber to hell. I spend most
friend who’s been fending off hepatitis the first, second, third, and fourth voice, days reading, writing, doing research,
C-related cirrhosis for over forty years via cirrhosis of the liver. watching movies, listening to music in
herbs and diet and acupuncture. When I I was hospitalized later that night. its darkness, all its levels that keep their
told him my numbers, he remarked that My enzyme levels continued to rise at edges hidden until the day when it will
they were “alarming” and that his weren’t an alarming rate. Oddest of all was that be too late to dismantle the taberna-
nearly as high. I was hoping for hepati- I felt fine. More than fine. Quite good, cles of incriminating evidence I’ve built
tis A, which enters, causes its suffering, actually. This would change, but not in with each word, thought, breath, and
and leaves satisfied, and does no lasting terms of physical symptoms. Over the misguided, self-centered action. But I
harm. But I tested negative for all three next four days and five nights, I would still am not within site of its walls, its
and my anxiety vanished, along with my be destroyed psychologically and this unknowable location.
night sweats. I spent the next two weeks has been, at least to the present time in And though I had to do a lot of
masquerading as a healthy person before early June, irreparable. I tested negative talking, I escaped, with one doctor’s
going to Bellevue to get the elevated en- for everything that could be tested for. permission, from Bellevue on the same
zyme levels checked. According to the The doctors’ terror entered every cell day as my liver biopsy, staggering unes-
ER nurse, my numbers were “high, but of my body, every organelle of whatev- corted down to the lobby where I wait-
nothing crazy.” She said my AST and er soul I still believed was intact. And ed for Stephanie to arrive and help me
ALT levels were in the 500-600 range there were teams and teams of doctors to the cab standing outside on what was
and bilirubin was down to 5. I was elat- to maximize that terror, hordes of pol- the coldest night of one of the coldest
ed. But she insisted I see a specialist the ished, disembodied shoes that appeared years I can remember.
next day, just as a precaution. Thinking unannounced and always at the wrong Ten days later I had my follow-up
nothing of it, I celebrated. moment below the edge of the curtain appointment with a boyish, easily pan-
On January 17, at Bellevue Hospital, drawn around my bed. No one knew icked thirty-something gastroenterol-
after a young doctor expressed concern what was destroying my liver. They ogist at the Bellevue outpatient clinic.
about the size of my liver and spleen, just assured me that yes, it was being He told me the biopsy was inconclu-
which he said were in early states of destroyed and yes, it would fail sooner sive. My numbers were down and my
inflammation, a technician performed than later and my only hope would be jaundice was gone. He seemed less pan-
a sonogram and told me to make sure an eventual transplant. icked and I felt my anxiety plunge to its
I show up for my appointment a week The emotional distress, so far, has lowest level in over a month. Then, just
later. But when I got home, I noticed been the worst part, especially know- as the doctor was suggesting monthly
the answering machine blinking. Men- ing that my illness can get much, much blood work and another sonogram af-
acingly. Four messages, which was un- worse. When months go by and no ter six months and basically saying I’d
usual and frightened me because at the doctor can diagnose and thereby halt or be fine, he looked up at the computer
time I mostly communicated through at least slow down what is killing you, screen and his panic returned. I knew
my cell phone. and you’ve been taken off psychotropic what it was. My lab results from two
I pushed play four times and four medications cold turkey, no defenses
doctors told me to report to the emer- remain. Still, I am not in hell yet. Just Continued, next page
Medical literary Messenger Fall 2014 | page 6
An Artistic Voice for the Healing ArtsContinued from page 6 have killed me had I not listened to the early stage, before the destruction had a
ineffable friends who still survive in the chance to mature and grow. I still have
days prior had just appeared out of no- wastelands of what is left of my liver, difficulty accepting that the liver is just
where. I thought he’d already gotten and stopped the treatments. a large malfunctioning piece of meat
them. “What…I can’t believe it…Mr. Before receiving, in April, 2014, an in the center of my body and not some
Cook, your numbers are back in the official diagnosis of autoimmune hep- frightened animal that I’ve somehow
thousands! What have you been tak- atitis, an obscure disease that affects wronged. It would be far easier and
ing?!” And so the monthly blood tests one out of ten thousand, the immune more comforting to accept the former.
would now be weekly system attacking the The world feels alien now. I am
and I faced a month “I still have liver as if the liver were physically weaker than I’ve ever been.
of phone calls from difficulty accepting invading the body, I Even walking from room to room is
this man informing me had to wait almost difficult and there is pain where before
each time that my situ- that the liver is just three weeks while the was only a slight clenching in my right
ation was worsening. a large malfunc- CDC in Atlanta tested side. And on those good days when I
Since then, I have my blood for an active have the strength to venture from my
been readmitted to the tioning piece of hepatitis E virus. But apartment and forage for groceries, the
hospital once, spent meat in the center I only tested positive sky seems heavier and the ground is
five days in the trans- for the antibody; ac- something I feel continually slipping
plant ward at Tisch, of my body and not cording to the results, I away, and I sense the previous self/
and been sent home, some frightened did not have an active selves who have died, but who I am still
still not on the trans- infection, which, in ret- somehow trying to warn. I remember
plant list, thankfully. animal that I’ve rospect, I now realize the person I was last summer, in 2013,
I have tried homeo- somehow wronged.” I’d already experienced filled with the anger of a man who mis-
pathic and naturopath- back in February and construed life with damnation, bump-
ic and traditional Western medicine March of 2010, stricken at the time ing into people, insulting men walking
and nothing is working. The doctors at by an illness similar to the one I had alone and women walking alone and
NYU show no interest in listening to in November and December of 2013, men and women holding each others’
the patient. Even my hepatologist has and which was most likely a trigger for hands or walking alone together. I re-
no desire to explore my case beyond the cirrhosis, as all autoimmune diseas- call trying to instigate arguments with
medication dosages and the numerical es have triggers, including any and all random Whole Foods employees—
results of liver function tests. Each time stresses, even those created by the self. sometimes even the unfortunate indi-
I relate some message from deep in my In early February of that year, during vidual just off his or her shift and who
body, a cry for help from a nearby but a particularly brutal evening of psy- happened to be nearby—for no longer
still ignored organ system, he either chological self-mutilation, I either ad- making the macaroni and cheese avail-
glances or does not glance in the direc- vanced to a darker part of the universe, able in the hot food bar where I could
tion of my voice after it’s landed and or something from that stillness which lop loud, conspicuous spoonfuls onto
disappeared at his feet—undoubtedly I finally disturbed one time too many my salad and devour it while waiting
nothing more significant than a sigh entered me at every level. I remember in the checkout line. At one point on
caught in the throat, another lay person a distinct energy displacement, as if all an otherwise enjoyable walk during a
with an opinion bordering on silence. the monsters huddled at the edge of visit to my parents in Blairstown last
Even more dispiriting, the homeopath- the solar system had found in my rage a autumn, I flared into an even scarier,
ic and naturopathic regimens—and I long sought-after warmth. This haunts more inexplicable rage when a leaf had
have always been a one-man booster me now. All the time. I keep chastising
club for alternative medicine—could myself for not seeing a doctor at this Continued, next page
Medical literary Messenger Fall 2014 | page 7
An Artistic Voice for the Healing ArtsContinued from page 7
the audacity to fall from its home in the
half-depleted foliage and touch down
on my hair, which, as I explained to my
bewildered mother and father, needed
no further complications.
Synesthesia 2
As of June 10, 2014, I am seeing
the sounds are too bright and
a hepatologist at the NYU/Langone
stage a riot in the booth where
Medical Center, and his contribution
I raise my finger each time I
to my ravaged body is 30 mg of pred-
hear something, a high lonely
nisone, 100 mg of Imuran and 20 mg
sound to the left of me, which
of Nadolol. I am also seeing a doctor of
is a dying star; and the yellow
integrative medicine in Basking Ridge,
cymbals right in front of me,
New Jersey. His contribution is a diet
red, red to the right, marching
restricted to flaky, wild-caught fish; soft
close to my eye, yes
yolk eggs; lecithin; desiccated liver and
greens, greens, greens. I would like to
I am at that age when I cannot
say I am hopeful. But after five months
hear certain things, certainly not
of rabbit holes and dead-end sugges-
the sounds of my green years
tions and access roads that lead in their
meandering, mocking ways only to the
Speak more clearly, what
patch of weeds no longer bright with
you just said is a pile of grey
the promises from which they started, I
sitting on the ground
cannot summon up more than the most
to my right, ash, and the dog
distant, cautious optimism. But it is still
is scratching silver on the door
optimism. There is always hope—a mi-
to go out
rage of a word if there ever was one—
until that human approximation in the By Catherine Harnett
sky who comforts everyone eventually
by shutting off the lights decides to do
so. ²
Rob Cook lives in New York City’s East
Village. He is the author of six collections,
including Blueprints for a Genocide (Spuy- Catherine Harnett is the author of two poetry books, and her short stories,
ten Duyvil, 2012) and Empire in the Shade nonfiction, and poetry have appeared in a number of magazines and anthol-
of a Grass Blade (Bitter Oleander Press, ogies. Originally from New York, she’s been a Virginia resident for more than
2013). His work has appeared in Asheville thirty years. She wrote this poem from personal experience. Her senses are
Poetry Review, Caliban, Fence, A cappella mixed up, and letters and numbers have colors and specific arrangements in
Zoo, Zoland Poetry, Tampa Review, Min- space. Her mother had some synesthesia, but she doesn’t think it was quite as
nesota Review, Aufgabe, Caketrain, Many deeply rooted as hers. She lives in Fairfax, and has a daughter in college.
Mountains Moving, Hampden-Sydney
Poetry Review, Harvard Review, Colora-
do Review, Bomb (online), Sugar House
Review, Mudfish, Pleiades, Versal, Weave,
Wisconsin Review, Ur Vox, Heavy Feather
Review, Phantom Drift, Osiris, etc.
Medical literary Messenger Fall 2014 | page 8
An Artistic Voice for the Healing ArtsTic
Tenth grade: it returned,
I started rolling my neck,
circling it around until that satisfying
crack.
As a baby, I crossed my toes, In college, there were days when it hurt to hold my head up.
so the doctor taped them together My neck brace is tucked in my drawer.
to keep me still.
tic
tic
“What’s wrong with your neck?”
In Dr. Nalynarayan’s office “It hurts.”
walking,
at age seven, tic
heel-toe-heel-toe,
across the straight silver line on the floor. Squeezing my eyes shut,
Tensing my arm
tic over and over until I need to put on a wrist brace, too.
Wiggling my nose,
Opening a wide mouth, scraping my throat with my throat
blowing out cheeks, until it hurts to swallow
jaw rocking from side to side. and I have to suck cough drops like they’re candy
because I can’t
tic stop.
I’ve given up ever trying to stop biting my nails
I was on haldol at age eight or picking at scabs
but Mom said it made me weird or chewing the inside of a mouth
and took me off it. that jumbles my words.
tic tic
“Why are you doing that?” tic
“I don’t know.” tic
tic
tic
“You blink a lot.”
I drew my family on a water slide, “Allergies,” is the standard answer.
my sister crying.
Looking for deeper meaning, By Molly Lazer
the psychologist asked why I’d drawn her that way,
But at age nine, who wouldn’t take a little
artistic revenge on a pain-in-the-butt sibling? Molly Lazer is an MFA candidate in Creative Writing at Rosemont
I played Nintendo with the doctor, College. A former editor at Marvel Comics, she now teaches high
and I never went back. school, acts, and directs plays outside of Philadelphia. Her work
has appeared in Gingerbread House, The Conium Review
Online, Rose Red Review, flashfiction.net, and is forthcoming in
tic Mirror Dance.
Medical literary Messenger Fall 2014 | page 9
An Artistic Voice for the Healing ArtsThe Bridge
Photo by Alexander Schloe
This photograph of the railway bridge in Richmond, VA, was taken at sunset from the bank of the James River on a beautiful summer evening.
Medical literary Messenger Fall 2014 | page 10
An Artistic Voice for the Healing Arts“After normal exertion a white crust would appear on Carlos’s forehead, thin and white
as a streak of dried milk, a sign that parents knew and feared centuries before...”
Mother’s Milk and Cystic Fibrosis
By Lizabeth Berkeley My career in lactation started in he was tested that he was suffering from
New York City when I organized a the same illness. After normal exertion
A
t the Baby Café I open the door breastfeeding education and support a white crust would appear on Carlos’s
each day to a flood of mothers. campaign as part of my Master’s thesis forehead, thin and white as a streak of
It’s common to see dark cir- in Public Health. A long and winding dried milk, a sign that parents knew and
cles under their worried eyes, uncertain road led me to fall in love, move to Tex- feared centuries before the seeming-
and anxious expressions on their faces, as, and have two adorable boys all in ly random complex of symptoms was
fragile newborns carried in ungainly car the space of a few years. Before the old- identified as a single disease. From as far
seats, and fretful husbands accompany- est was four they were both diagnosed back as the Middle Ages, an infant with
ing them like shadows. I also open the with Cystic Fibrosis within the space of a salty forehead was said to be afflicted
door to a wonderful cadre of volunteers: a month. with “the curse of salt,” a sign that the
smart, creative women who all started From the moment our first son, Pe- child was destined to die in a very short
as Baby Café clients themselves. All of dro, was weaned from the breast, his time, from the condition we now know
this may not sound like an honor, but it weight and height flattened on the stan- as Cystic Fibrosis.
is. No matter what mind-bending lacta- dard growth chart. He appeared gaunt The day the pediatric pulmonolo-
tion puzzle confronts me on a particular and developed a mild, though chronic, gist gave us the news that both of our
day, it is a vacation from my other full wet cough, and had frequent diarrhea. children had a chronic, potentially fatal
time medical occupation, which consists Pediatricians and pediatric sub-special- disease, I felt that the world was turned
of caring for two young-adult sons with ists came forward with a variety of con- upside down. I couldn’t eat, sleep or
Cystic Fibrosis. flicting diagnoses: short parental stature, think. I felt numb, overwhelmed by the
The Baby Café is a drop-in support lactose intolerance, and cough-variant gravity of the doctor’s prognosis, and
center, a non-clinical setting with up- asthma. Eventually, a pediatric pulmon- by my own helplessness. The first time
holstered couches, fluffy pillows, ap- ologist suggested a sweat test, more to I went to pick up the medications that
pealing photos and art, toys and books exclude Cystic Fibrosis than for any oth- they would both presumably need for
for toddlers, snacks, decaf coffee and er reason, or so we thought. The sweat the rest of their lives, I was dumbfound-
tea. We have been providing the service test provided us with a definitive answer ed by the sheer volume of pills, elixirs
in our cozy venue for almost six years as to what was wrong with Pedro. and solutions for nebulization. And the
at a nursing school in El Paso, Texas. Cystic Fibrosis affects the lungs, machines. Nebulizers, physiotherapy
The Baby Café is a place where breast- pancreas, and a host of other organs, vests, sterilizers, humidifiers. Beanie ba-
feeding mothers can find peer support usually leading to heart and lung fail- bies, puzzles and tricycles were shoved
from other mothers and a professional ure and an early death. Although it is a under the bed and into the corners to
lactation consultant. It is a place where genetic disease, and my husband and I make room for all of the hardware. (Eva
they can find empathy, acceptance, both came from large families, none of Markvoort, a blogger and activist who
and support for the choices they make our siblings had been diagnosed as a car- suffered from and eventually succumbed
about breastfeeding, and all the con- rier. And while our younger son Carlos to Cystic Fibrosis, said, after a failed
cerns, both personal and societal, that did not exhibit the wasting and cough
go along with that decision. that afflicted Pedro, we knew even before Continued, next page
Medical literary Messenger Fall 2014 | page 11
An Artistic Voice for the Healing ArtsContinued from page 11 for most of the years that my boys were they usually need more than anything
growing up. A break from Cystic Fi- else) to go one more day or one more
lung transplant, “Tubes hold you back. brosis was imperative (a guilty admis- hour, helps me survive my own and my
Feeding tubes, nebulizer tubes, home IV sion I was for a long time not ready to children’s situation.
tubes, oxygen tubes. I think that’s one make, even to myself ). Cystic Fibrosis My involvement with the mothers
of the things I’m most scared of. Need- is a condition that requires daily chest in the Baby Café has helped me to see
ing tubes again. Feeling held back.”) I physiotherapy, dozens of medications, the experience of caring for two chil-
would soon come to understand that hospitalizations, countless tests and dren with Cystic Fibrosis as part of the
along with familiar childhood scents diagnostic procedures and sometimes broader human experience. Mothers
of popcorn, bubble bath, and pizza, our surgery. The psychological pressure of feel the joy of parenthood, but they also
children would always retain the mem- so much medicalization of daily life feel fear, helplessness, disillusionment,
ory of the rotten fish odor of nebulized combines with the stress of battles with pain and vulnerability. Helping young
acetylcystine, which was the only muco- insurance companies, hospital bureau- mothers face the challenges of breast-
lytic available 20 years ago. cracies, and overly-taxed medical staffs; feeding by making myself available and
The solitary reprieve we received in with the constant unease of an uncer- accompanying them through their first
those days came from a small number of tain prognosis; and with the ever pres- uncertain days, teaching about proper
providers who were enthusiastic about ent specter of death; to create a perfect latch, helping them to understand what
advances in gene therapy, an enthusi- storm of worry, depression and fear for normal weight gain is for a breastfed
asm that proved wildly over-optimistic, both the patient and loved ones. baby, assisting them in complying with
but which was a source of hope in the The Baby Café is a respite from the prescribed treatments, and, above all,
early days after our boys were diagnosed. world of CF. The mother who visits the helping them to take control of their
Others gave us less reassurance during Baby Cafe with a failure-to-thrive five- breastfeeding experience, helps me to
that vulnerable time. A respiratory ther- day-old jaundiced baby demands my full walk more closely and courageously
apist who dropped off the first nebulizer attention, as does the military wife who beside my own children, come what
at our house left us angry and alarmed. has been trying to get pregnant for five may, and to teach them to take on the
“Are you sure it’s CF?” were his words years and finally welcomes a perfect, rosy difficult responsibility of controlling
to us, “That’s really bad.” Other provid- baby only to find out that her breasts are their disease. In my work and in my
ers, with the slightest comment or sub- hypoplastic and can make no milk. The life, it has become clear to me that an
tle concerned expression, could pierce young teenager whose own mother is integral part of the treatment process is
our hearts like an arrow. I’ll never forget still profoundly disappointed about her affirming that it’s okay to be afraid, to
the pediatric infectious disease specialist pregnancy and who now has to con- be sad, and to have anxiety about the
who wrote in Carlos’ chart during one tend with a three-generation dog-pile future, but it is also possible, and indeed
hospitalization, “very supportive father,” of aunts, grandparents, and neighbors necessary, to have hope, courage and
perhaps because it is common for fa- who think breastfeeding is obscene de- confidence that we can become active
thers to be the first to exit a CF family. mands my total support; at that moment participants in therapy and healing. ²
On another occasion, a prominent CF her presence and need fills my mind and
specialist reminded us of a basic truth heart. I get to hug her and tell her she is Lizabeth Berkeley, MPH, IBCLC, RLC earned
of living with a chronic disease—that doing a great job, which is all that she her Master of Public Health from Columbia
every good day should be appreciated needs to succeed at breastfeeding. The University. She is a board-certified lactation
consultant, and, in addition to running the
and celebrated. “Look at your sons!” he non-stop, cracked, bleeding, and distort- Baby Café, she is on the faculty of Texas
said. “They’re running around like idiots! ed nipples, the mothers with babies who Tech University’s Gayle Greve Hunt School
They’re survivors.” suffer from tongue-tie and reflux and of Nursing. She has published articles and
essays in a number of journals, including
Fortunately I was able to keep on thrush—they are my salvation. The con- Clinical Lactation, Southern Medical Jour-
working in my field, albeit part time, fidence a mother gains (which is what nal, Cultural Survival and Mothering.
Medical literary Messenger Fall 2014 | page 12
An Artistic Voice for the Healing ArtsFanny Brawne
She and Keats embraced, He told her to stop waiting;
then he gave her his he was never coming home,
copies of Ovid by sail or coach.
and Homer.
And he’d written so well
He promised to marry under her wing,
her when he returned, his Hampstead muse …
though he was already
coughing blood into She got the letter five days
a pocket rag. after he died, read it many times
before the coals burned out.
A Roman winter
might save him, Soon after, she took down
English damp and fog the books he had given her,
a death sentence. read what he hoped
they’d read together.
And Fanny said goodbye,
would be there waiting Love had many shapes
at the dock when and now she was alone,
he returned … though longing and desire
were strong as ever.
At first, he wanted
to read her letters, then But when that longing
the doctor bled him was a broken ship,
more often. she suffered in her flesh
every pain of loss.
The sight of those letters
hurt worse than anything, On the far side of grief,
even the stained blade. she and Keats were
married in memory,
But he asked that one in England even still.
might be written down,
sent to her. By William Miller
William Miller is the author of five collections of poetry, twelve books for children, and a
mystery novel. He lives and writes in the French Quarter of New Orleans.
Medical literary Messenger Fall 2014 | page 13
An Artistic Voice for the Healing ArtsYou may lose your
Cancer... ovaries...
Do you have any
questions?
Yes... I have been on
a special diet for a
MONTH.
What can I eat?
Medical literary Messenger Fall 2014 | page 14
An Artistic Voice for the Healing ArtsArtwork by Venus
Venus’s journey started with the removal of a Krukenberg tumor; a very rare tumor that originates in
the gastric system and inevitably targets women’s ovaries during their reproductive years. This type of
cancer hits young women who are stressed and not eating right where it hurts—the path to mother-
hood. She explores this thought: “From plate to body, maybe a cure for women’s cancer can be found.”
You can see more of her artwork at www.bongyongart.com or make a donation toward her treatment
at http://gfwd.at/1q6fH6N.
Medical literary Messenger Fall 2014 | page 15
An Artistic Voice for the Healing ArtsCure
By Anne Spollen I watch as he inputs my son’s re- and revealing the disappointment of
sponses into the computer. Is this an that wizard.
A
pril. Pink light falls through Internet diagnosis? I think of those Here we go, the doctor says, we have
trees. Everything opening at tests I took in middle school: answer a diagnosis.
the same time you are clos- these questions and you will discover The doctor gives us a slow eyed
ing. We drive past strip malls, hous- what kind of flower matches your person- glance and says to my son, “You are de-
es, through towns where everything ality. pressed.”
moves, normal as water. You cry in the What the fuck? I want to shout this, Right, I say, I know, he’s also male,
car. I keep giving you tissues. I tell you and shake the doctor. Dead animals? but is it bipolarity?
we are almost there. I don’t tell you An online diagnostic? He can’t sleep, Oh, the doctor says, We don’t know
how I wish you were here with me. I he has forty minute panic attacks and that until after adolescence. We can’t
don’t tell you how I look at you and can’t remember what day of the week diagnose that. We’ll start conserva-
can’t find you anymore. it is without prompting and he was an tively, a low amount of Prozac, see if it
The doctor’s office is blurred with honor student and we’re talking road- helps. He won’t see results for at least
underwater tones, as if he fears edges. kill? three weeks.
Fish glide inside a tank; the walls are pale Would you be showy, like a rose? Or See if it helps. Three weeks.
green, the furniture is Pottery Barn shab- shy, like an orchid? Daisies are genial… He has no life right now, I remind
by chic. All soft and muted. Three days The doctor types. the doctor, is there anything else?
to see him and only be- Outside, clouds The doctor tells me it all takes time.
cause it’s an emergency. “He can’t sleep, he move, struck by spring Can I come back in three weeks?
“You’re very lucky,” his has forty minute wind. My son watches It’s only three hundred dollars the
flitter of a secretary tells and I wonder if he is second visit. He smiles.
me, “it’s usually a few panic attacks and thinking how he has My son cries in the car on the way
weeks before you can get stopped moving. home. Darker pink light falls through
can’t remember
an appointment. This is “Do you want to trees. I give him tissues. It grows cold-
very unusual.” what day of the hurt anyone?” he asks er so I stop to get his jacket from the
Yes, I want to say, week it is without my son. My son looks trunk.
because nothing has at him for a long min- In that moment of unfolding the
been unusual for us prompting and he ute. fabric, the scent of my son rises and I
lately. She hands me a was a former honor “Sometimes,” my am transfixed, understanding that this
clipboard containing son answers. is he way things will come to us both
the Magna Carta. student and we’re “All right then, now, now: in silent, enveloping ways as if we
Four hundred dol- talking roadkill?” the panic. How does are living inside a slow explosion. ²
lars I had to borrow. that feel?”
Embarrassed, but no choice. The doctor My son tells him how he feels Anne Spollen is the mother of three
crushed. His eyes water. He can’t move children, a writer and a teacher. She wrote
is young and listens to us explain.
“Cure” in response to an actual event.
“What do you think when you see or even sit up. Currently, she is working on a collection
a dead animal on the road?” the doctor Then a breakthrough: the doctor of essays exploring how the concomitant
diseases of depression and addiction have
asks. He has a slight accent, as if the presses ENTER.
affected her family. Anne is also the author
foreign is being trained out of him. My We wait, smiling at each other and of two young adult novels available on
son shrugs. I think of Dorothy, moving the curtain amazon.com. She lives in Staten Island.
Medical literary Messenger Fall 2014 | page 16
An Artistic Voice for the Healing ArtsGene
if by some western miracle I could spoon out parts of my self to create new life
it would mean that these tiny ribboned gifts.would be carried around by some girl baby born with thick black hair
and a love for ponies and the noise that trees make
she would keep them in her pockets her overalls her shoes
she would feel pressure at the base of her spine and find it quite ordinary
for her legs to go numb while sitting on a city bus
she would grow up with little white pains across her head
and in the palms of her hands she would talk to her body
as if it were someone living in her apartment someone behind her
with a sharp hot stick
she would find the flimsy sound of ambulance doors slamming at her cold feet
comforting like sirens and blinking iv poles
her eyes would become closed rooms where she would lie
watching the shadows of the gowns float past the still door
she would recognize the surgeon by the crack of his shoes
know the days of the week by their muffled polypropylene slip down a quiet hall
she would want to be a doctor because of the way they entered rooms
with their eyes down because of the way they held their pens the soft precision
she would not understand the rules of baseball or soccer or where to put her hands
but she could name all the bones in her wrist categorize her friends by their blood type
memorize the western cities because that is where they send the blood
my girl baby would wish for sparrow bones an old soul they would call her
my little miracle my ink blending into the air breathing into the snow
my girl baby would walk with a catch would stop only sporadically
to unclench her jaw open her hands and stare at the speed of the clouds
while others watch her watching the sky
By Kate Peterson
Kate Peterson is a graduate of Eastern Washington University where she earned her MFA in Poetry. She loves teaching composition,
but sometimes wishes she had gone into medicine. More of her work can be found in Glassworks, Apiary, Barnstorm, as well as in the
anthologies Eat This Poem, and Railtown Almanac. She lives in Spokane, WA.
Medical literary Messenger Fall 2014 | page 17
An Artistic Voice for the Healing ArtsThe Love Song of Elliot Blue
By Jacqueline Kirkpatrick that we leave. I stop reading the book on what to
Instead, she tells Bobbi that my expect. I sit in a waiting room beside
Four Weeks: Your baby is an embryo. It is child’s father was just arrested. my mother and Bobbi. They talk about
the size of a poppy seed. The organs and Christmas cookie recipes.
body parts are beginning to develop. Ten Weeks: Your baby is the size of a kum- I hear a heartbeat and I imagine
quat. The tissues and organs are growing burning the building down and killing
On the eleventh grade field trip to
rapidly. everyone in it for making me listen.
Salem, I tell Marsha while we sit to-
gether on the bus sharing ear buds lis- I skip school to go to his house. I find
Fourteen Weeks – You throw the book
tening to Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged, him on his bedroom floor painting a Bi-
away.
that I’m pregnant. She cries. I can’t tell ble in red oil paint. I sit beside him. He
if she’s happy or sad. I can’t tell if I am tells me he knows we’re having a son. He He comes over after my parents are
either. tells me he has already named him El- asleep. He sits on my bed. He tells me
At a tourist shop I buy my child’s liot Blue. We cry together. We agree we he’s glad I’m doing it. It just isn’t right
father a postcard. I write on it that will keep the baby. He slides his hands for us. What do I want for Christmas?
I love him. I tell him we will be fine. through the oil and then brushes his fin- When can we fuck again after it’s all
There is a bowl at the checkout counter gers down my stomach and thighs. over? Can I drink on New Years Eve?
filled with stones. Beside it there is a I imagine the paint is blood and that Did I have ten dollars he could borrow
laminated identification card explain- I’ve lost the baby and it’s not my fault. for cigarettes and orange juice?
ing all the powers of each one. I buy a
Moonstone. I write on the back of my Eleven Weeks: Your baby is the size of a Fifteen Weeks
receipt that Moonstones are beneficial fig. Its hands will open soon and turn into
The IV in my arm makes me nervous.
for a woman’s organs, a healthy preg- fists.
Every time I move it feels like it’s scratch-
nancy and aides in motherhood.
He hasn’t returned my calls in days. ing an organ. The doctor lets him and my
His friends say he is with someone mother come see me before I go in.
Six Weeks: Your baby’s nose, mouth and
else. I realize that could mean anoth- My mother kisses me on my cheek
ears begin to take shape. The heart is beat-
er girl, or heroin. My mother uses this and tells me I’ll be all right. She repeats
ing about 100 to 160 times a minute. It is
as an opportunity. She calls Bobbi who that I’m not ready. She says one day I
the size of a lentil.
makes a house visit. We sit in the front will be. She leaves the room.
My mother brings me to my father’s yard so my father, who is attached to an He holds my hand. He brushes my
hospice nurse, Bobbi. I sit at her kitch- oxygen machine, won’t see or hear us. hair back from my forehead. He tells
en table. She cradles her coffee in her We have not told him and he is too sick me he loves me and that I’m going to
fat fingers while her Bichon nips at the to notice. I am certain he will die before do great.
bottom of her dress. She tells me she the baby is even born. I change my mind. I beg him to let
can drive me to Planned Parenthood Like a Greek chorus they sing the me go home. I tell him that we can do
and help me with the paperwork. She songs of termination. it.
assures me that it’s all for the best. My He is silent. He nods. Sympathet-
mother nods in the background finger- Thirteen Weeks – Your baby is the size of ically. He pats my head like a dog and
ing photos of Bobbi’s dog on the man- a pea pod.
tle. I want her to turn around and insist Continued, next page
Medical literary Messenger Fall 2014 | page 18
An Artistic Voice for the Healing ArtsContinued from page 18 ask him to call the hospital and tell them I Jacqueline Kirkpatrick is
currently in the MFA in Creative
fucked up. I want to go home. Writing program at the College
lets go of my hand. As he walks out of the I hear a woman’s voice asking me if it of Saint Rose in upstate New
room the sedation begins. I imagine my was all right if they listened to INXS. The York. She has been previously
published in South85, Nailed,
front yard. I see my father mowing the lawn. doctor, she said, absolutely loves Welcome Mason’s Road, and Empty
I want to say something to him. I want to to Wherever You Are. ² Mirrors.
“Next”
Photo by Michael P. Stevens, MD, MPH
Patients in queue for a clinic in Maralal, Kenya.
Mike Stevens is an Infectious Diseases doctor at Virginia Commonwealth University and spends time working with VCU’s Global Health &
Health Disparities Program (GH2DP) in rural Honduras.
Medical literary Messenger Fall 2014 | page 19
An Artistic Voice for the Healing ArtsStructures
We’ve been taking you apart for weeks now,
Piece by dripping piece
You’ve come away in layers as we scrape down
down to some meaning we’ve been told should be there
It might be, or it might not be, people are all different
It’s possible I’m not learning from you at all.
That frightens me.
What made you think this was a good idea?
You are so much less now
Visually
Spatially shrunken
A table and bucket and greasy towels
I wonder if you knew what this would be like
If you knew we would circle around you
That the chemical smell would make us hungry
You must have known
One hundred years of truth soaked up
Enough not to care what we do to you now
Given back to us, partially fixed
So much of you already lost
So that’s what that looks like
Or maybe that’s something else
Decay. Disintegration.
Every time we open the table
I stop myself from grabbing your hand
And then I forget that it’s there.
By C.I.L.
This poem was generated during an anatomy lab in which C.I.L.
was incredibly frustrated. The poet was bothered—more than
anticipated—by the process of dissection.
Medical literary Messenger Fall 2014 | page 20
An Artistic Voice for the Healing ArtsAutoclave: 1960
By Claude Clayton Smith “The autoclave was a toaster for mattresses.
I
n the depths of the hospital was
Whenever somebody died on one of the wards
an autoclave. It looked like an or in a private room, the head nurse would put in
enormous iron lung—the kind
you used to see on television with
a request to send the mattress to the autoclave.”
someone’s head sticking out, the head At any point during that summer of my and dry it with a paper towel. Now he
of some poor kid with polio. Its large cynical sixteenth year I could have gone was ready to make his “rounds,” as he
round door opened like a clothes dryer. through the wards and private rooms said, “just like a doctor.” One of his
The autoclave was a toaster for mat- and informed patients that the last per- duties was to check each of the small
tresses. Whenever somebody died on son to use the mattress they were lying kitchens on the different floors and
one of the wards or in a private room, on was now in the morgue—all that wards and make sure the cockroach-
the head nurse would put in a request sanitary stuff about disinfecting mat- es were under control. He had to wait
to send the mattress to the autoclave. tresses was just PR. But I said nothing. until they were unoccupied. Then he’d
It was my job to carry it there and stuff snap off the lights and pause a few
it in. Then the autoclave would heat up
and disinfect the mattress.
Actually, none of this was neces-
O ne day Rufus got in a fight with a
cross-eyed white guy who worked
in the main hospital kitchen and tried
minutes before snapping them back on.
If he saw anything scuttling along the
floor when the lights came on, he had
sary. Just because somebody dies on a to stuff him in the autoclave. to note it on his clipboard. The extermi-
mattress doesn’t mean that the mattress Rufus was big and black and took nators would follow on the night shift
is infected. It’s all public relations, as numbers for the local syndicate. He was to spray the kitchens he reported.
Mrs. Olgivie, the head of the House- a general helper in the Housekeeping Rufus kept a pen clipped to the
keeping Department, pointed out. Still, Department and everyone stood in awe pocket of his brown khaki shirt. He
Mr. Steve—the supervisor of the male of him. carried his clipboard in his left hand
Housekeepers—would have me lug the He always carried a large paper cup and paper cup in his right. And when
offending mattress to the autoclave. with a plastic lid from the Lobby Shop. he turned the lights off, he was sending
I’d grab it by the side straps and slide The plastic lid had a hole in it and a a signal. He’d wait for a minute, then
it from the bed, once the nurses’ aides straw sticking out. Rufus would go to anyone on the floor—doctors, nurses,
had stripped the sheets. Sometimes the the Lobby Shop to get a large soda housekeeping personnel, anyone who
sheets were bloody, and sometimes the during the morning coffee break, and wanted to play a number—would stroll
mattresses were stained. Many of them the silver-haired country-club volun- by the kitchen and hand him a slip of
looked like mattresses at cheap mo- teers would fill a large paper cup with paper. He’d put the slips into his paper
tels—not that I’d ever been to a motel, ice. They always skimped on the soda to cup and give it to a local courier from
cheap or otherwise. I was only sixteen make more money for the hospital, but the Mafia at the end of the day.
and this was my first summer job. Rufus didn’t care. All he wanted was The crossed-eyed white guy got
Sometimes I put the mattress on a the paper cup with the plastic lid and in trouble with Rufus when they
gurney, if there was a gurney available. the straw sticking out. crossed paths one day. The cross-eyed
Other times I’d just drag it to the eleva- He’d chug the soda and spill the ice guy worked in the main kitchen. He
tor, cram it in, and take it down to the into a potted plant in the lobby. Then
bowels of the hospital to the autoclave. he’d wash out the cup in the men’s room Continued, next page
Medical literary Messenger Fall 2014 | page 21
An Artistic Voice for the Healing ArtsContinued from page 21 into with the mattress. Rufus pushed
the button for the basement.
seemed to have mental problems. He All that was down there was the
Waiting
would look at you cross-eyed, but you autoclave.
couldn’t tell if he was looking at you
or somebody else. You couldn’t tell if
he was cross-eyed or just nuts. His
job was to push the big stainless steel
I t was the longest elevator ride of
my life. I stared straight ahead
while the cross-eyed guy screamed in a waiting room,
food truck around to all the floors. and squirmed on Rufus’ broad shoul- a stationary space
This container was about ten times der. of empty chairs
the size of the cart that a stewardess Fortunately, Mr. Steve was below beneath a framed painting
pushes down the aisle of an airplane. when the doors opened, waiting to of a bucolic road,
He was pushing the food truck from show me some new wrinkle about the an interval between rows
the kitchen when he came to a corner dials and thermostat on the autoclave. of tall trees, oaks
where two corridors intersected. There Rufus dumped the cross-eyed guy on bathed in opalescence,
were mirrors on the ceiling, but the the floor and went back upstairs for iridescent white light
cross-eyed guy was too short to see his paper cup and clipboard—but not the essence of which
over the top of the truck. So he ran before promising to make toast of him one must taste, feel,
into one of the elderly female house- next time. walk through, breathe-in
keepers coming from the other direc- The following day the cross-eyed in order to arrive at some
tion and laid her flat. guy waited for Rufus outside the predestined destination,
I just happened to be lugging a Lobby Shop and whacked him across I wonder
mattress down the corridor when the the back of the head with a piece of of others
woman got hit. And Rufus just hap- angle iron. Rufus was taken to the ER who’ve mind-wandered as I
pened to be coming along with his for stitches and the cross-eyed guy down this ribbon of road,
paper cup and clipboard. What da was fired. in search of a directing sign,
fuck you doin’, man? Rufus said, and Admitted to a private room in the calling upon their gods,
the cross-eyed guy said, Mind yer own hospital, the elderly female house- promising if only....
fuckin’ business! Rufus put down his keeper survived. Rufus visited her in a room they did not choose,
paper cup and clipboard and grabbed during his daily rounds. ² with little else to do
the cross-eyed guy by the front of the but wait.
shirt. Meanwhile, a few nurses and a Professor Emeritus of English at Ohio
passing doctor stopped to help the Northern University, Claude Clayton By dl mattila
Smith is co-editor/translator of The Way
flattened housekeeper. She was un- of Kinship: An Anthology of Native
conscious and barely breathing. Siberian Literature (2010) and author of
The collision had caused the doors Ohio Outback (2010), Lapping America
(2006), Red Men in Red Square (1994),
of the stainless steel container to swing Quarter-Acre of Heartache (1985), The
open. Trays of food and silverware had Stratford Devil (2007, 1984), The Gull dl mattila is a linguist and poet residing in
spilled across the floor. The cross-eyed That Lost the Sea (2008, 1984), and The the Greater Washington D.C. Metropolitan
Cow and the Elephant (1983). His work Area. In addition to print and online publi-
guy picked up a fork and raised his has been translated into French, Danish, cations in the UK, the US, Nepal, and Cana-
arm, but Rufus hit him in the belly, Swedish, Russian, and Chinese. He holds da, her work appears on the Maier Museum
doubling him up. Then he tossed him a DA from Carnegie-Mellon, MFA from of Art 2011 Ekphrastic Poetry webpage and
the Writers’ Workshop at the University of at the Fisheries Museum of the Atlantic in
over his shoulder and squeezed into Iowa, MAT from Yale, and BA from Wesley- Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. She holds an MA
the same elevator that I’d just squeezed an (CT). in Writing from Johns Hopkins University.
Medical literary Messenger Fall 2014 | page 22
An Artistic Voice for the Healing ArtsBurning a Hypothetical
Helianthus Annuus
I. one ounce: 53.58 - 133.92 miles to consider the following factors:
equivalent to 27 shelled seeds as I giddy up Human death rates caused by
equivalent to 164 calories into one speed. nut allergies, Basal Metabolic Rate
approximately one small handful (BMR), hypothetical food
IV. one race shortages, the average harvest,
And if I run 22 minutes at 5mph, Dean Karnazes is a real person natural spoilage, bird
my body can burn like one small who ran 80 hours and 44 minutes and bug thievery,
handful, like one ounce. without sleep, (350 miles), Standard American Diet (SAD)
equivalent to 3 days 8 hours and other catastrophes.
II. one head: 44 minutes. For example, if I ate nothing but
an entire sunflower’s head, Forrest Gump, who is not a real one sunflower on a standard
depending on size, can produce person, ran 3 years 2 months 2000 calorie per day diet,
800-2000 shelled seeds, 14 days and 16 hours. it would take me days to eat
approximately 29.6296296 ounces- When Gump got tired he just every seed although I have
74.0740740 ounces, went home. problems with leftover dinners and
and therefore contains And what will you my nutritionist advised me to
4,859 - 12,148 calories decide to do when focus on portion control.
it is time to spread I also have poor balance
It will take between 10 hours yourself thin? and cannot run, therefore I will
43 minutes & 26 hours only consume one ounce of seeds,
47 minutes of non stop running V. one conclusion: one small handful at a time and
for my body to To determine how many formulate new equations
burn one head. Americans, if placed on a
calorie conscience diet, and I watch in horror as I realise
III. one speed: can burn one Kansan field of that every sacrificial face in this
5mph = 12 minutes to complete sunflowers entirely by field is gazing towards the East,
a mile consumption before inspecting Mecca, seeking one
5mph = is my “giddy up” speed the field’s germination, typically conclusion as they all burn like the
To burn the calories within 5-7 days, an improved holy hallelujah of the sun.
of my hypothetical flower, equation must be adapted.
I will need to run It is essential, therefore, By Sea Sharp
Sea Sharp is a self-proclaimed “refugee of Kansas” and an American expatriate who resides in Great Britain and works in Adult Social Ser-
vices. Sharp is a Creative Writing and Literature graduate of Kansas State University with forthcoming or recently published work in Blast
Furnace, Three and Half Point 9, Storm Cellar, Flyover Country Review, and NEAT -and previous work performed by MXTW (2004)
(2005). Sharp is also a vegan who enjoys “sensible amounts” of scotch and dancing with a hula hoop.
Medical literary Messenger Fall 2014 | page 23
An Artistic Voice for the Healing ArtsYou can also read
