Chris Lesher

He’s Out of Hospital

By John Grey

So here he is,
stepping into the sunlight,
missing half a leg
but defiant.
After all,
everything else of him
remains in place.

A month in hospital,
a reprieve,
a vow to occupy the present tense
as passionately as ever.
Let disease bear the guilt.
It will not tell him what to do.

Outfitted with a prosthetic appliance,
but same voice,
same blue eyes,
despite everything,
a pillar of free will,
of elementary particles
in constant motion.

Help him into the car maybe
but not into his life.
He’s there already.

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Sheepshead Review, Stand, Poetry Salzburg Review and Hollins Critic. Latest books, Leaves On Pages, Memory Outside The Head, and Guest Of Myself are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Ellipsis, Blueline, and International Poetry Review.

On the Cusp

By Victoria Crawford

My toes once clutched pool edge
curled bird claws
teetering betwixt
excitement and fear,
racing dive or belly flop?

At home with palliative care
needles and pills,
I trace ceiling cracks
shapeless void
eyes closed and open

Mimosa leaves wave
through windows
one morning
I wake to the delight
of no pain
the novelty of twitching
fingers and toes

Two years on,
I wiggle my toes
pool edge, bright water
racing dive or belly flop?

Victoria Crawford began writing poetry during a two year recovery period following a stroke. Her poems have appeared in journals such as Blood and Thunder.

Piezoelectric Bones

By Cit Ananda

It has happened before.
Remember the flood.
Remember Atlantis.
Some do.
Some remember.
Ancient cells woven
into youthful flesh.
Memory is a fickle thing
that rises when rising is summoned.

Bone chill,
the resonance of remembering
vibrates through our body,
a signal from the left malleolus
where deep within the neighboring tendon lies a cell
within whose membrane is a code scribed in nucleic acids
part of which once trampled the Earth in the spine of a brontosaurus’
seventh vertebrae.

Nothing is ever lost.
On the outer edge of an expanding black hole
sprayed like a Jackson Pollock,
is information— bits and bytes, stored as a dome,
a cell membrane of events, of data.

Ever wonder why bones are piezoelectric?

This is one of many ways the Great Mystery plays our tune
in harmony with the beetles and the whales,
sending chills down our spine
so we resonate with what we didn’t know
we already knew.

Inspired by “From the Council of All Being” by Joanna Macy

Cit Ananda experiences language as a proxy, pointing to the unspeakable majesty of life. Her poetry is frequently inspired by direct experience, captured in the moments between perception when the mind falls quiet and deep silence shares an offering that touches the mystery of life’s majesty. She will tell you she catches poetry on the winds of the universe. There is a thread in all her work of the sacred, sometimes explicitly and sometimes implicitly, but it is always there just as it is always present in the flow of life. She holds a Doctor of Divinity in yogic philosophy and lives with her husband, two children, a fox-red lab, a rescue cat and a calico bunny in Idaho. Cit Ananda has had work published or forthcoming in Mountain Path, Tiferet Journal, Amethyst Review, Soul-Lit, Offerings: A Spiritual Poetry Anthology from Tiferet Journal and El Portal. She is also the author of When Silence Speaks: Messages from the Heart, a full-length poetry book.

Rust

By Shawna Swetech

Color of oxidized metal or the brown
of fungus on a rose leaf. Stainless steel
won’t corrode, neither will plastic. But once,
I ran my finger over a spot of powdery bronze
on a cast-iron skillet, marveling how the color
stained my skin. Then, decades later, that rotation
in the ER during nursing school, when a young man
came in hemorrhaging from his mouth, a few days
post-tonsillectomy, spitting copious volumes of blood
into a pink washbasin. We ran his gurney down the hall
and straight into an OR suite for emergent surgery
before he bled out. Afterward, I couldn’t stop trembling,
had to step outside into the cool morning air
before helping clean the exam room: the burgundy
splattered walls; the fishing of paper towels
from the basin of coagulating, still-warm blood.
I’ll never forget the sickening glisten of floating fat,
the blood’s metallic odor, like copper or rusty
iron. How the large, soft clots moved
against my gloved hand—the roiling horror
of that very close call.

Shawna Swetech is poet and recently retired RN who spent 35 years as med/surg nurse.

Six Weeks of Sleep

By Susan Davis

God clears the path
traffic is non existent
Monday morning
in Southern California
Mission Hospital our destination

vomiting and the worst headache ever
two signs a brain aneurysm
was lurking somewhere near

7:15 am
our lives changed forever

ER the big blazing red sign on the left
turning our BMW and racing into the parking lot
ambulances only
I’m terrified of ambulances
shaking pulling out and parking elsewhere
Karen’s soft voice:
“go get someone, I can’t walk”

automatic doors opening for me
yelling, I need help
a male attendant guiding the wheelchair
slowly, slowly, and slowly
to our car

grabbing your hand
and placing you
in a wheelchair
pushing slowly
too slowly for my comfort

placing a pink-bucket
on your lap
for vomiting
inside the ER
leaving you by the fish tank
big, beautiful, fish swimming
independently
you needing help

the pink paper strong and firm
together on the hard backing
of a clipboard
squeezing the clipboard
with terrified fingers
Karen was all I could write

screaming from your lungs
now aspirating
my lungs bellowed
the screams heard by all
mine was the loudest
a teacher’s voice
wanting to control the room

walking slowly
the attendant returned

silence by all
pushing you slowly
through the trauma door

your drooping head
touching your left shoulder
collapsing eyes closing

medical staff
swarming the room
all hands on deck
intubating you while I sat far away

the team wheeling you past me on a gurney
a blue bag connected to your face
were you suffocating?

rushing to CT with an entourage of
nurses
I love you, Bear
no response

questions being fired at me one after the other
did she eat breakfast?
what pills were taken?
insurance?
home address?

results:
brain scan: screamed
a brain aneurysm
rupture

placing you in a six week coma
the chasm where sleeping was all you could do
pinned down by
tubes, medicines, machines
and fate

nurses at your side
two at a time
machines beeping
red lights blinking
like a construction zone
warning: danger

all while sleeping

holding onto what life
you had left

our pups need
food and water
it is now 8:00 pm
I need to
return calls,
write emails,
prepare lessons

a teacher by day
one hundred and sixty eighth graders
all needing me too

another red light shines
another alarm buzzes,
but this time- for me
home
6:30 am
kibbles for the pups
shower, dress, another day
a cookie for each dog

drive to school to teach

back at your bedside
the Beijing Olympics
blare on most televisions
my sweet Bear
deep in the depths of medications
tubes, bed bumpers, IV’s

everything restraining you
from even moving a hair

7:00 am open my classroom door
students in and out
long before school began
Room 14 a place for all
a safe zone
essays taught
literature too
young voices

needing me
claiming me
as their own

but I needing them too

Olympics were boring
without you
silence where conversation once was
our pups and me on our sofa
no conversation
just my own

you lay supine in
the burgundy bed
in “grave condition”

time was of the essence
minutes, hours, days
monitors all around you
to give the doctors and nurses
results

hang on, Bear
I’m right here

in room 14 at my desk
my phone rings
the hospital
needs permission
to “aspirate your lungs”
yes, I reply
I’ll sign the papers
when school is out

I bolt to the hospital
where you are
to see you
to hear you-
to touch you
but only the machines give voice
buzz, beep, beep, beep
the sounds reverberate off the walls

the aspiration a success
touching your arm soft and warm
do you feel me?
I talk to you
I sing to you
do you hear me?

when will you wake up?

life is lonely without you

back home
do the dogs know?
feeding them three at a time
answering emails
phone calls one by one
grading essays one hundred at a time

I drive from school
Room 14 to the hospital – Room 12
two numbers apart

but miles away

no dishes to wash
no food to eat at home
breakfast-lunch-dinner
all on the road

at your bedside
watching you eat
liquid drips from the tan bottle
on a tall metal pole that secures your meals
hoisted high above your head
it flows through a tube into your nose
eventually into your tummy

what flavor is it?
is there even a taste?
chocolate? maple maybe?
it’s tan in color
how many calories?

my blueberry tea latte and blueberry scone
let’s have breakfast-you and me
silence so profound that it breaks

devouring my scone
tasting every savory bite of dough and blueberries
wondering if your liquid nutrients taste
as good as my blueberry scone

sushi- four times a week
our favorite dinner together
one order of yellowtail
salmon and a California roll
ponzu sauce on the side

liquid dinners-one drip at a time

I’m on my own
sushi for one, please

Michael Phelps won eight gold medals
Misty May-Treanor Kerri Walsh Jennings
didn’t lose a single set

you were supposed to watch
with me-

when will the coma release you from its hold?

daily I come to see you
to hear you
to touch you
but you are speechless

silence speaks volumes again

Bob Costas commentating on primetime
Jim Lampley on daytime
Mary Carrillo late night

I want to hear your voice!

I was a teacher by day
a wife
a lonely companion
by night.

Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

Susan M. Davis is a retired English teacher of 28.5 years. She is a constant mentor for her former students. She is married to her wife of twenty years. Her wife suffered a brain aneurysm rupture on 7/28/2008. Susan continued to teach 160 eighth graders a day then she went home to caretake for her wife. In between those full time duties, Susan earned three MFA degrees at Fairfield University. Susan and Karen live in Irvine California with their three pups.

Soothsayer

By Christopher Linforth

I miss those emails
you sent me:
called me licorice boy
after a season in
Finland, & I stayed
silent, unwilling to
reply, even after
being a reply-guy
for so many years,
deaf to what you
actually wanted,
& I remember you
saw us as a duet,
our minds & voices
in rapture,
with so much to
say about our future
that I missed the part
about the air around me
carrying the sound
of only a single breath.

Christopher Linforth’s latest book is The Distortions (Orison Books, 2022).

The Medicine Cup

By Denise England

Dedicated to Austen Jeanette Bell

The plastic cup could only hold one ounce
of liquid or a few pills, two or three;
you swallowed them then from your bed you threw
down the wretched vessel in defiance.
But as it flew, it floated like a sail
and bounced as soft as cotton off the nurse.
Her cheek flushed pink and from my perch I burst,
scooping the cup I urged you to impel
it harder as it caused you great offense.
And when you’d thrown it wildly but not further,
your fury not yet spent I said to murder
this tiny demon symbol of your cancer.
Yet though pulverized, it was resilient,
like you. At twelve mere years, you my niece, are valiant.

Denise England is a Francophile and lover of poetry, art, travel and medieval cathedrals. Having studied in Bordeaux, France, before completing an M.A. in French literature, her passion for French language and literature, as well as her travels abroad with her husband Heath and family, inspire much of her writing. Her work seeks to find elements of faith and connection in the sensations of life. She enjoys sharing and developing her poetry within communities of other poets and artists, including The Muse Writing Center in Norfolk, Virginia, and Spectra Arts in Northwest Arkansas, where she lives.

The Nurse

By Nigel Smith

A poem written about a ‘peak experience, from a hospital stay two years ago, Cellulitis, Pneumonia, +13 1/2y PD.

Then the World held no comfort for me; and
within a pause, all my ‘before’ and ‘now’
blanched invisible with the rapid dilation of
my collapse;

to live must I stand, and move, endure
pain beyond, again and again to keep
the mosaic of the feather self whole;

a thought bloomed with a sickening jar,
I knew I was broken, my World no longer
held any comfort, no cradle of infancy
remained, gone the surety of the familiar;

ahead, a tangle of thorns through which I must
once more stumble and crawl, muscle and tendon
protesting with fire;

I could do so no more, I sought the still sleep of
moss & granite, my last and only movement being
fingers over Lilies strewn, tracing the yellowing curl
of their decay;
and yet, at this my endpoint, a hand laid tender
strokes of soft persistence upon my hair, each,
in its wake, drawing me closer to her embrace;

and when my head finally pillowed upon her,
she shared the beat of her heart, its soft hypnosis
complete as she hummed ‘I know, …..I know’

I was but one of many in her care yet I felt a
love of sorts, from a stranger who helped
the sick, the Lost for no other reason than
Goodness within;
she smiled the world to wait, and said
‘Come on Love’, and I rose through my
pain, my anguish and stood
once more;

where for a second or two
I knew the majesty of human
love, of compassion’s silent
power.

I could see only the neutral
shades of the same, contrast
struggling to get purchase,
and everyone blinking,
trying to clear a tear;

Nigel Smith is from and currently lives north of Leeds, in the county of West Yorkshire. He is married to Jo-ann and has two adult children Before PD he worked in Optics, now he writes poetry and creates content for audio and visual projects. He is co-founder of ‘The Wall,’ home to the collective known as The Poets with Parkinsons.

We Named Him Al

By Andrew Oh

That’s short for formaldehyde.
Dying of a fatal arrhythmia at 94,
Al was a grandfather,
a lover of tattoos,
and my first patient.

When I first met him,
he was lying face-up on
cold steel.
He spread his arms out,
and invited us into his space.

When I cut too deep
into his abdomen,
or failed to separate the fascia
between his muscles,
he was always patient with me,
never raising his voice
or rolling his eyes.

He showed me the web-like muscle network
of dilated cardiomyopathy
and what it smells like
when you perforate the bowel.

On our final day in the lab,
I walked over to table 9,
Al’s resting space,
temporary home,
and last place I’ll see him.
“Thank you” I whispered,
and zipped his bag shut.

Andrew Oh is an MS4 at University of Washington School of Medicine.

Her

By Kristin Mattson

“Mysterious affair, electricity.” —Samuel Beckett

Friends tell me that my personality has returned. I laugh more. I smile like me, unmasked. It hasn’t been an instant or dramatic change; she didn’t raise me from the dead. But as time stretches since the surgeries and we continue to balance my medications with the contraption’s settings, a little more of my light has seeped back in. I am grateful to Her for that.

To say I’m grateful to the woman who brightened my dimming light seems a little weak. But, in truth, I don’t know how I feel or how I should feel. Not long ago she held my life – my mind – in Her hands. I twice allowed Her to drill holes in my skull and thread live wires into the inner recesses of my brain. By the second time, I wasn’t sure I liked Her, or trusted Her, and yet I must have felt some sense of sureness, since I granted Her power over my identity for that second surgery, and the third.

In the beginning, I did feel sure. A tiny woman with an outsized personality, I was drawn to Her from the start. The ease with which she related to me and my family and Her skill at explaining complex surgery without jargon or oversimplification made me trust Her immediately. I felt confident to be partnering with Her for the awake brain surgeries ahead and understood instinctively why outcome data shows that women often fare better when operated on by other women. But I soon discovered faults in our connection. While I never doubted Her technical competence, I reached for Her often after that first meeting — as a friend, a counselor, a guardian — and touched only air. Sometimes I saw in Her a desire to reach back, perhaps prevented by the time-and money-crunching American healthcare system or competition or imposter syndrome in an extremely male-dominated profession. I believe our lack of connection impacted my care. When I was in the thick of the ordeal, it made me angry. Now it just makes me sad.

***

I remember when it started to fall apart: The first time I saw Her on the day of the first surgery was right after my headframe placement. Intentional or not, Her timing meant that we would discuss what to expect from my brain surgery while I was constrained by a very heavy headframe screwed into my skull. Because of the weight and shape of the headframe, I could not tilt my head back far enough to see Her face or make eye contact. She made no attempt to equalize the power differential noticeable in the room. I asked Her how long the surgery would take, and she made some joke about how she could speed it up if I had somewhere to be. Maybe I asked another question or two, maybe I didn’t, I can’t remember. She said she’d see me in the OR and left and I was wheeled to radiology to have an MRI.

***

I am claustrophobic. I have had successful MRIs and know how to distract my mind from the shrinking walls. Music had been most helpful, but I suspected — and they confirmed — that a headset would not be possible with the headframe. When I got to radiology, I was transferred to the MRI table. The front piece which enables the camera for the MRI was attached to the headframe, significantly obstructing my view, and cutting my reality into slices. To immobilize my head to best visualize a clear path for the leads, the headframe was then secured to the MRI table with screws. I knew all this was coming and while I was breathing fast, I was doing OK until they tied my arms and legs down. I asked if they could free my arms and legs and was told they could not. I think I pleaded. They said no. And then I panicked. Lost breath. Cold sweat. Spreading whiteness.

“I need to sit up.”

“You can’t because you’re secured to the table.”

“Just to get my bearings.”

“It will take too much TIME! (She’s not going to be able to do this.”) If you sit up, I’ll have to get the big boss down here to give you something to deal with your anxiety.”

“FINE, WHATEVER, JUST LET ME SIT UP!!”

While I would have given anything and everything to sit up at that point, I did not want medicine. I wanted time. Time to adjust. But no one heard that except one woman in the room, a PA, who tried to support me but lacked the authority or confidence to take charge. Everyone else heard the OR clock ticking and a noncompliant patient who was gumming up its works. There was no real discussion, the focus was on getting me to comply quickly. Medicine seemed like the best option. But to medicate me, they had to get Her down from the OR, call the anesthesiologist, and then, wait for everyone to arrive AND for the medication to take effect before shoving me into the MRI. If I had been allowed to sit up and gather myself, I am fairly sure less time would have passed before my MRI was completed.

When she arrived in radiology, she huddled with Her staff out of my earshot. When she talked to me, it was clear there was nothing more to discuss. She was pleasant and efficient and approved the administration of the drugs. The conversation was over. She could not hear me, so I did not talk. The anesthesiologist told me I was going to feel like I drank six cocktails and then — NOTHING. My MRI was set to start about 10 a.m.

My next clear memory is waking up in a hospital room the following morning and calling my husband to tell him I was okay — or maybe to ask him if I was okay.

***

“So, you really don”t remember anything from the first surgery?”

She asks me this while she’s having me demonstrate the accuracy of Her placement of the leads before she closes the hole in my skull during the second surgery. When I tell Her I don’t, she says, “We do, we’re all still traumatized by it.”

And we all laugh like we’re in on some inside joke, but really, I’m the butt of the joke and it’s not all that funny. I do have a smattering of memories from the first surgery: sliding down colors, trying to name the American presidents in order, riding in Her spaceship in the OR, bucking on the operating table because my restless legs were out of control, and I wanted to get out of the leg strap. But I don”t know what’s real and what’s not, so I don’t share.

What I do know from reviewing my own medical chart and talking with my family is that eventually the benzodiazepines they gave to relax me appear to have had the opposite effect. As I became more agitated, they administered more Ativan and Versed to calm me down, and instead they amped me up. Eventually two doses of Dilaudid did the trick but also seemed to feed my hallucinations. I sat like a Buddha and pantomimed plucking tasty morsels out of the air and repeatedly struggled to get out of the bed. That’s how my 21-year-old daughter found her mother when she arrived first at the hospital and was ushered back into post-op. Fearful and confused by the lack of explanation for my behavior, she started to cry. So, no, it really isn”t that funny.

***

“So how are WE going to get through this surgery tomorrow?”

The emphasis is on the “WE” — apparently my first surgery is now our shared trauma. My husband and I are at Her office the day before my second operation. In the time between surgeries, things have been tense between us. I wrote Her a letter expressing my frustration that drugs were such an immediate and inadequate solution to my anxiety. Why hadn’t I just been given the time to gather myself that I had requested? I told Her I hoped that things could proceed differently next time. She had responded by voicemail expressing clear irritation with my questions and communication. She concluded Her message by informing me that while she would support my desire to complete the MRI unmedicated, they didn”t have an infinite amount of time and eventually she”d have to either sedate me or pull the plug on the whole operation.

The meeting is short. I reiterate my plan for a drugless MRI and she reiterates Her skepticism. In the end, we agree I will be given time to try, and if it stretches out too long, she has my permission to medicate me in a way that preserves my safety and gets me through the procedure.

***

On the morning of the second surgery, I get woozy when they put in the IV and need cool compresses and more air. I watch as confirmed suspicions are passed around the room. Again, the shaved head. Again, the lidocaine shots to the head — burning, searing pain — followed by the burrowing of the headframe screws. Again, the intense slowly dissipating pressure in my skull, crushing my ears. I have closed my eyes to block out the room and the people and the pain and the doubt. Someone is holding my hand. When I open my eyes, it is Her.

***

A resident is wheeling me to the OR. She follows behind with Her assistant. They are discussing the drugs they have on hand for me. They have Xanax and Ativan, and plenty of them. I’m not sure if they know I can hear them or if they care, but I say to the resident:

“They don’t think I can do it. Well, I’ll just have to show them.”

He agrees kindly and I feel like an impudent child, my bald head, my ridiculous crown, my disbelieved promises.

***

I am screwed to the table, tied down in the MRI machine. I am panicking but concentrating on my breath. The most helpful thing I read about how to confront claustrophobia is not to fight it, acknowledge that the panic will come and that it will also go away. She comes to the end of the tube and yells into it,

“You’re doing great! I’m going to be right here.”

At first, I am irritated — she is holding up the start of the MRI and I think if I don’t train my mind on its banging soon, I will expire or explode. And after all we’ve been through, why would she think Her presence would be reassuring? But then, oddly enough, it does kind of relax me — it makes me smile. This kind of reassurance obviously does not come naturally to Her. She is trying to reach back.

***

To get through this second surgery, I tried to figure a way to channel my anger into a drive to complete the whole process without the aid of sedating or pain-relieving medications. And I was successful, completing the procedure with only topical anesthesia and antibiotics. However, fully awake this time, I realized it was not my anger that carried me through, but rather my partnership with Her.

Surgical suites are cold and frightening places. But she appears to draw energy from this barren space. The confidence she exudes as she conducts the elaborate ballet in this stark universe helps me to relax. Unable to turn my head which is secured to the operating table, I calm myself by tracking the authoritative softness of Her voice. Secure in Her authority here, she is not hesitant to share power. When she talks to me, she moves into my frame of vision. She is generous in Her praise of my performance, and I wait for and treasure Her encouragement. I want to demonstrate the effectiveness of Her work. In these magical moments we are partners, our energy flowing together, channeled toward our shared goal.

***

It has been a little less than three months since my last surgery, and I am in Her office again, this time for bowstringing. My body has aggressively scarred along the extension wire that connects the leads in my brain to the battery in my chest and my head is getting progressively closer to my shoulder. Then she tells me I look pretty. She says she doesn’t know what it is — maybe my tan (we just returned from Hawai’i) or the new gray pixie that has sprouted from my bald head. She claims she doesn”t know what she”s drawn to, but I suspect that she does. She is admiring the way Her wiring illuminates my previously listless features and makes me seem more alive. In response, because the circuit that allowed our energy to flow together in that second surgery still connects us, I start to reach for Her, to thank Her for the brightening and to allow us both to share in the glow. But too much has passed between us and the energy we create is unbalanced and unstable, like static electricity, and I withdraw the hand I had thought to extend, afraid of being shocked.

Kristin Mattson teaches political science at a small women’s college. Many years spent as a patient, family member (of a patient) and educator have given her both a great respect for and a healthy skepticism of the American medical system. Presently, she is enjoying putting her newly energized brain to good use: rock collecting, swimming in any body of water she can find, and laughing with family and friends.