killing medicine

Big A posted this publicly, and I'm sharing a part of what he wrote here. The whole thing is basically a valediction for the medical progress he's seen over the course of his career and the reverses that are already beginning to happen. 

This is just one of the many, many, many stories from people like him who have devoted their lives to making a difference and are now seeing everything they've worked for being dismantled in a matter of days.

"As a premed at the NIH in the mid-90s, I volunteered at D.C.'s largest HIV clinic during the ongoing AIDS epidemic, and got a tour of Tony Fauci's lab from one of my co-volunteers who also worked in Bethesda. One of the most astonishing changes in the 30 years since is that we rarely see complications of advanced HIV infection in the ER.

As med students in Cleveland, we were regularly awestruck running into Fred Robbins, who received a Nobel prize for their contributions to the development of the polio vaccine, in the hallways,. I have never seen an acute case of poliomyelitis, but it's suddenly plausible I may. (Until 2024 I had never even diagnosed whooping cough; I've already been exposed twice in the past two months during a recent pertussis outbreak triggered in no small part by the number of unvaccinated children.)

I'm eternally grateful for having trained at Bellevue Hospital during the era of Lewis Goldfrank, who always put the needs of the marginalized and afflicted above those of corporate medicine and the capitalist healthcare system. And I'm lucky to have had support from the NIH as a postdoc, which has allowed me to devote some of my hours outside the ER to helping prevent fatal opioid overdose among my fellow Michiganders.

But the grants that pay for free naloxone come from the HHS, now led by an infamous anti-vaxxer and conspiracist (while, simultaneously, an unelected far right-wing industrialist is rapidly dismantling pieces of the global public health safety net)."

And so it goes. Sad and scary times. And it's happening all over, in the National Park Services, the Kennedy Center, and all across the federal workforce.

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Pic: Huck and Max aren't ready for me to take this picture. Max is like: Mom! Do you mind? I just want to pee! We had a massive snowstorm--Huck is wading in snow.

steps to space

I am five and a "flower girl."

In the nativity play. 

(It must be one of the roles they give out when the real parts are gone quipped someone recently.

It's probably true.)

I have a new dress with flowers on it. I have flowers in my hair. I am so excited. 

My mother wants to know if she can help me rehearse "my steps." She means my choreography/step-by-step moves on stage. 

I have no idea what she means. 

(I have nothing to do in the play. I merely stand in a line with the other bit players and throw a flower or two out of my basket.)

It becomes a small "thing." 

Do you know your steps? she keeps asking. 

I have no idea how to respond.

I have a brainwave and tell her that I can't say them but I can draw it for her. 

She's confused. But ok. 

We find some paper and crayons.

I proudly draw her a series of descending interconnected "Ls" to make a picture of stairs...  they begin and end in emptiness.

*

At is nearly five. This child is my life.

It is summer, my favorite time of the year. 

At is an easy, happy child. We've spent hours cuddled up,  painting, reading, exploring in the community garden...

In this moment, At's health status terrifies me. "Failure to Thrive" a medical resident said with a smile once. (I know they were smiling because they'd solved the mystery diagnosis and not because my child might not live, still...) "Failure to Thrive" makes mealtimes and food intake strenuous and stressful. 

It is summer, my favorite time of the year. 

It is summer and At has no school.

I am in grad school. I am newly widowed. I have spent the day parenting alone. 

I owe my advisor a dissertation chapter, I owe a colleague a book review, I owe the IRS what seems a lot of money.

It's finally 7 pm and I put At to bed. After reading and singing and talking (At has always LOVED to talk), it's 8 pm and I'm getting ready to slip out of At's tiny bed. 

"Stay!" At says. Hopeful eyes, cheeky smile.

And I (will forever regret that I) said the tired thing in my head. "I have to go, Kanna... I need to make some space for me." 

"Wait-wait! Here, I'll make more space for you!" the lonely child says--tiny, triumphant hands eagerly sweeping up books and stuffies to make more room for me.

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Pic: Rainbow-tunnel-carwash. Stuck there, it seemed both grim and hopeful at the same time. 

easy hero

Sarah was so right about that feeling when you can "swoop in" and set things right for your older kids who are usually so independent, but are also... kids.

I stopped at the Genius Bar after work to get Nu's phone fixed. It would take them 90 minutes. I didn't have to make dinner (it's Nu's Boss Day and they were ordering Pokè), so I walked around the "lifestyle mall." Maybe I'm at a point where I really do have all I need, because I wasn't even tempted to buy anything. (Hero!) I'm sure I have a version of everything in the quarter century of colorful, curated stuff in my overstuffed closet. (Hero!)

Nicole and Lisa talked about laughing while listening to their podcasts on walks and wondered if people thought they were silly. I have the opposite problem--it was so cold, my eyes were streaming as I walked and people in cars kept giving me concerned looks or averted their eyes and twice stopped to ask if I was ok. (Heroes don't cry!)

Anyway, the Genius Bar charged me 0.00, Nu's phone was fixed, I picked up some tiramisu to be extra, and came home to a hero's welcome.

Pic: While I was waiting, it occurred to me that Nu's phone is attired in characteristic Nu fashion: ink-dark for the most part, but with plenty of sparkle, and a laconic sense of humor.

my tiny domestic tragedies

Big A seemed a bit better yesterday. But he didn't think so. I think he likes being taken care of. It makes me think of my hero, June Jordan, saying "None of us has known enough tenderness" and how Big A is usually the one taking care of people. Today A says he's better... but not well. Tomorrow he's scheduled to work. He plans to go for it despite my misgivings. 

Last year, when he ended up in the hospital for a week it was because of complications from the long Covid he got when he went to help out in NYC at the peak of the pandemic in May 2020 (way before any vaccine). So this third round of Covid terrifies me on a deep level--I keep imagining the effects lingering on even after things seem normal.

In the hits keep coming department: Nu's extensive filling came out, they slipped and fell on the ice, and their phone stopped working. Guess which thing made them cry? I'll have to get things fixed for my baby tomorrow.

This piece by Mhawish "I Spoke With 20 People in Gaza After the Ceasefire. My Heart Broke 20 Times" is as heartbreaking as it sounds, and is searingly poetic and will live inside me forever. This is massacre delicately uncovered to help us understand how excruciating the human loss in *each* of the hundreds of thousands reported dead, injured, and bereaved. How domestic tragedies multiply into humanitarian disgrace...

Pic: It's still icy, but there was some fresh snow, which made it easier to walk on and brilliant blue skies and sunshine. Max, Huck, and I are easily pleased, I guess.

desire is difficult to diagram

if you called my name but I was already gone

I'm sorry

oh, you never quite felt like you could call me--

I'm sorry

will there be a happily ever after... a crying game

I don't know

I know the incandescent knowledge of nearness

I do know 

the history of desire, its statement of purpose 

is to know 

without looking, the beaconing of new pleasure

we failed

to see our souls were rotating towards danger

we fail

each other unraveling faster than imagination 

we wait

circling for directions, feral breath on fur, lying

in wait

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Pic: The hand-made dish I found at the thrift yesterday ($2:73!); I nestled some hyacinths, rosemary,  baby aloe, and moss together in it. I think tiny daffodils (when I can get some) would look particularly nice because of the yellow flower in the center. I wonder who made this, whom they gave it to, and why it ended up at the thrift store.

but not yet...

It really did take them two and a half hours to fill the prescription for Big A's anti-virals at Meijer. I did the weekly grocery shop for 45 mins and would have lost my mind having to wait for the remaining time if I did not have a book on my phone (William Dalrymple's The Golden Road; recommended).

I was meant to be in Detroit poking through an art warehouse with LV who was sending me pictures of his finds from said warehouse and started to have serious FOMO. So after settling Big A in with meds and snacks and checking to see if Nu needed anything for the school's winter dance (they didn't), I took myself off to the Horrocks Farmers' Market and the thrift store. I reveled in all the growing things and got some hyacinth bulbs at the first place and found some things I plan to use as planters at the second and returned home feeling more rooted (ha).

I wish I could feel like A is doing better, but he isn't yet. Maybe tomorrow. 

Pic: Tulips... at the Farmers' Market. Not in a field, not yet... but surely Spring is on its way.

it's not novel anymore?

After weeks of  warning everyone around us to be careful out there as there were all kinds of respiratory illnesses out there in the ether/E.R., Big A has developed Covid-pneumonia. He had this weekend off and we had all kinds of plans and I'm so sad and mad about him being sick and me having to quarantine. He gets antivirals tomorrow, so hopefully he'll start feeling better. 

This is round #3 of Covid for him. 

Also, if that wasn't enough, he accidentally got stuck with a needle from a patient with Hepatitis-C as it was being disposed. That's counted as an active exposure and so he'll have to get tested and keep getting tested for a few months to make sure he doesn't develop that too. Hep-C is very serious, and the more I read about it, the the more it feels like I'm looking down an abyss.

Both these things are exposure because of his being in the E.R., of course. We joke about how his job is apocalypse-proof and he'll get paid in potatoes and eggs because he delivered people's babies or set their bones. But I'm ready for him to find another job. (Nu too, probably. They weren't happy about having to cancel the sleepover they had planned for tonight and they were going to hang out and get ready for the school dance with friends here tomorrow too.)

Pic: Everything is frozen and this morning Max and Huck decided to play right in the center of the pond we dug last year. I know I could wade in and rescue them, but I do worry about the ice cracking and dunking them into the water...