My thoughts drift back to my early years of training, when for nearly 2 years I spent every third night on call in the hospital setting. One night still haunts me. more»
Interested readers can now access my latest Humane Medicine column — Hauntings: When the clinical mark is missed — recently published in the Journal of the American Academy of Physician Assistants.
Please note that all of my previously published Humane Medicine pieces can now be accessed here.
A Morning Mass on Mothers’ Day
I arose Sunday morn in the misting,
Half hooded, I pulled back the shroud,
From the bed to the bath faintly listing,
With the canopy covered in cloud.
I pulled on my pants in the darkness,
I slipped on the soft cotton shirt,
I left the back door slightly open,
And trekked down the moist narrow dirt.
It was morning, all misty the meadow,
The river was smooth as a glass,
I bent by the edge of a hedgerow,
And peered through the door to the mass.
Spring beauties sat straight in the narthex,
The lily lamps towered anew,
The bleeding hearts hung by the windows,
Each one held a tear drop of dew.
And there in the front at the altar
Of a moss-covered log and a stone,
Stood the Lincoln green lad in the pulpit,
Silent and straight and alone.
I paused, turned an ear to his sermon,
Though he spoke not a word to the air,
So telling I couldn’t work a word in,
As I knelt in the silence right there.
A Mothers’ Day sermon on Sunday,
In the midst of the flowering wood,
Near the bend of the silent still water,
Where a Jack-in-the-Pulpit stood.
5/12/2013
“Jack-int-the-Pulpit” 2013 © Brian T. Maurer
“What is that?” My wife poked her head out of the kitchen doorway. ”Hear it?”
Seated in the parlor, I looked up from the book in my lap. A series of notes sounded in the distance, reminding me of some long ago boyhood dream.
I marked my place in the text with a finger and rose from the love seat, padded to the kitchen and stood by the open back window. The tall maple trees in the neighbor’s back yard stood silhouetted against the twilight sky. Three fluid notes sounded from deep within the wood, over and over again.
“That’s a whip-poor-will,” I said. ”I haven’t heard one of those for years.”
Actually, this was the first whip-poor-will I ever remember hearing in these parts since we moved here three decades ago.
Perhaps this was a harbinger of good things to come, I thought.
And then, just this morning…
Brian T. Maurer’s review of Emilio Estevez’s epic cinematic journey “The Way” has been published in the International Journal of User-Driven Healthcare.
The International Journal of User-Driven Healthcare (IJUDH) is a refereed, applied research journal designed to provide comprehensive coverage and understanding of clinical problem solving in healthcare.
Interested readers can access the article here.
I recall seeing this mother with her older son two months ago. Unlike this robust younger brother, her first son was born 12 weeks premature and subsequently faced myriad medical problems. He grew poorly and manifested developmental delays over the first two years of life. She certainly had her hands full caring for him. more»
My latest installment of Notes from a Healer — Up to her neck — is now online, newly published in the Yale Journal for Humanities in Medicine.
The Yale Journal for Humanities in Medicine is an online journal fostering discussion about the culture of medicine, medical care, and experiences of illness. Interested readers can access a list of editorial board members and regular contributors here.
“A little girl is one thing, a little runty pig is another.” E. B. White, Charlotte’s Web
E. B. White opens his children’s classic with the birth of a litter of spring pigs. One of them, the runt of the litter, will just make for trouble; and so Mr. Arable is poised to do away with it.
“This is the most terrible case of injustice I have ever heard of,” announces Fern, his daughter, the young girl who will save the pig on her own terms.
Thoughts of Fern ran through my head when my younger daughter pulled into the driveway with a large yellow bin sitting on the seat beside her.
“What you got there?” I asked.
Proudly, she pulled the bin from the car and held it down so we could see inside. There, nestled in with old newspapers and several towels, lay a pink spring piglet.
“The sow at the farm had a litter, but she killed all of them except for this little guy. We rescued him from certain death. His name is Lucky, because he’s lucky to be alive.”
She carried the yellow bin into the kitchen and sat it on the floor. From her pocket she pulled a plastic baby bottle, filled with formula. “Wanna feed him?” she asked, handing me the bottle.
I pushed the rubber nipple gently against the piglet’s pink snout. He soon latched on and began to suck and swallow like a hungry newborn.
“How does he get along without his mother?” I asked.
“He’s got his own bed under a heat lamp at the farm. He’s gotta be fed nearly every hour round the clock. I’m usually up with Mr. Christensen anyway, so I offered to take a couple of feeding shifts over the weekend.”
Mr. Christensen is the octogenarian that my daughter takes care of during the week. He’s got Alzheimer’s dementia. My daughter makes his meals, bathes him, helps him get dressed, drives him to the adult daycare program at the assisted living home, and makes sure he gets to his doctors’ appointments on time. She did the same thing for his wife up until she passed away this past February.
Lucky dropped the nipple from his mouth and lay down in the bin. He pushed against the towels with his snout and closed his eyes. For all appearances he looked to be one contented piglet.
“Are you going to keep him here overnight?” I asked my daughter.
“No, he might get cold. He’ll probably do best in his own bed under the heat lamp. I just wanted to stop by and show him to you.”
She picked up the bin with the sleeping piglet inside and carried it back outside to the car. The engine roared to life.
“I’ll drop by sometime next week for dinner,” my daughter said. “I’ve gotta get back to the farm to look in on Mr. Christensen.”
I watched her back down the driveway, negotiating the tight turn into the street. She waved from the open window. In that moment, she seemed supremely happy.
I reckon spring piglets will do that to you. Taking care of older folks who can’t fend for themselves does that as well.
“Lucky” 2013 © Brian T. Maurer
