Mercifully, the agony of her screams – surely the sound one makes when being slaughtered – did not come to me last night in my dreams as it had so many nights before. There was no overpowering smell of gasoline or burning flesh when I awoke. Still, when I...
Having no intention of being involved in this case besides my signature on the chart, I listened to the Physician Assistant as she described the patient. He was old. He had prostate cancer with metastases to his liver and his brain. He was sent from the nursing home...
Drawing the short stick, I slowly rose from the computer and put on my best happy face. As an ER doc, I’m not sure which complaint is loathed the most, but I know weak and dizzy in the elderly has got to top the charts. And there I was holding that complaint and chart...
When he began to scream and swing his arms wildly, his wife was by his side as always to soothe him but her melodic voice fell on deaf ears this time. She had been through the aftermath of his torments but even she was scared as he ripped at his clothes and...
When the plane safely touched down in the middle of the lava field that had been turned into a landing strip, I knew the healing would begin. I had imagined that all the pain I was feeling inside would be magically washed away with the first sounds of the ocean....
I’ve apparently been seeing signs all my life, but it wasn’t until recently that I started paying attention and finding the faith to follow them. It’s crazy when I think back: More than fifteen years ago now, as I was sitting in the Bolivian...
Walking into the ER, I was completely annoyed. Mostly I was pissed with myself that I had been bamboozled into doing this damn night shift on a holiday made for drinking. This was the funk of getting sideswiped by my hoodwinking boss and I couldn’t shake my disgust....
These are words I never thought I would utter. And don’t worry Lefties, I’m not a Trump supporter. But to my friends on the Right, I do have to give him props where props are due. You see I never thought of myself as political. I try my best to steer clear...
Catching a glimpse of her corpse as I entered the ER and shaking off the old memory that I couldn’t quite place but knew was located somewhere in the deep recesses of my mind, I darted by. Not really having much time, my head had only turned towards her room for...
Today is my dear friend Cathy’s birthday. She changed my life. I was her doctor in the ER that diagnosed her with a terminal brain cancer. She was my patient that soon became my friend and then my angel when she passed. The short time I knew her in her physical...
