asklepion

The universal symbol of medicine, ie, the Asklepion (or caduceus, after Asklepios, the Greek god of healing and medicine) is likely a representation of dracunculiasis and its treatment. To this day, accepted treatment remains the same. The adult guinea worm is wrapped around a stick a few centimeters a day to coax it from a person's skin.

this one is for my peeps in the broncks.

the guiness guzzler, the musulman and the hindoo: the three of them saved my bum in gross anatomy. we had a reunion the other day in south street: looking at exquisite dissections, a far cry from our slaughter house (7) experiment. they made me laugh, doubled over with my head neck deep in carnage, at a time when i would have rather been crying and wallowing in self-pity. we were troubled by the fact that the exhibit had a disproportion of asiatic/mongoloid features, unknown, unclaimed bodies oddly postured and spectacularized for the "lay": once our privilege as newly minted medical students, now a sight for all to gape and glorify. if it weren't for the hindoo's aecom hoodie, we would never have been discovered in our street clothes.

and then there was goose and my man shek, who paid me a visit a couple of weeks ago. shek was en route to an interview in philly, so he hitched a ride with dave. i took them to the dinah for a couple of burgers and fries. they met lucy, whom they adored, we laughed at my firesetting fiasco, and then they left. goose is going to RSA and shek is going to India for the month and when they return they will know their fate for the next three to five years.

match day: a rite of passage for many a med student. a couple of months ago i would have been upset by this event because i was supposed to be there. who am i kidding: i still have pangs of sorrow and remorse for not having been a part of the graduating class of 2006. but i am so so so proud of all of these guys who have made my experience delightful...from many a run on concrete trails or 80 meter suspended indoor tracks to many a night watching the OC or Gilmore Girls to many a cheers shared after long weeks buried in books, these guys got me through it all.

i will end with this one thought: my 70+ year old south african anatomy professor/surgeon, in his final lecture, said that looking back he would have done it all over again. i can say the same now, at 26...and i can only hope that at 70, i can say it once and again.

it ain't the new yorker....

i fancied these two when i was a wee tot. not in the victorian sense…more like i wanted to B (squared) like them: Bunson and Beeker.

why my fourth grade project, which required reading a bibliography and creating a gift for that person, was dedicated to Big Al himself.


now i am swimming in it: the fast and the furious, motile minds scuttling: eating, sleeping, waking, dreaming, breathing the WORK.

Researching:

searching again and again for some kind of truth.

Even when I am trying to read and repose with a hot young ingenue by the name of Zadie Smith, I am thinking about the WORK.

A couple of months ago I was down and out, like a sailor parched on a deserted sea. I was kicked in the rump more than a few times by the MAN. (the very same MAN I tiraded against so long ago, the locus of phallogocentrism. remember the times, when we all tiraded, tirelessly?)

at the NIH meeting no less: i was sitting at the top of the stairs, having walked into the auditorium late. no sooner had ten minutes passed when i felt the Furtive Foot digging into the crack, where my skirt first met the floor. I angrily scooted forward, not looking back. It wasn’t until after the talk that I realized to whom the Furtive Foot lay captive: the MAN himself, the very same who embarrased me at a research meeting not long before. And so it was: the literal and the figurative came to flesh in one superfluous joke, and I was the butt of it.

I have not seen the MAN in some time, and I am all the more happier, and wiser. But I probably will see him soon…in April, when I have to present my abstract to him.

But I walk with greater strides these days. Because I am loving what I am doing, and no longer feel muted. Because I am giving voice, and receiving in return.

Overheard: the head of Pedi ID to a fledgling researcher, after reading her qualitative research paper: “you might consider submitting it to the New Yorker.” understated: “but not Nature or NEJM or any of the other high falouting journals whose bums we like to lick here at Yah-ALE.”

I’d take the New Yorker anyday. But NEJM would be nice as well….

mmm...toasty

i love quiznos.



even when i call it quizmos, and both my sister and dave now know to correct me without missing a beat.

a reason to love quiznos even more:
today i got lost. in bridgeport. another one of my trips to connecticut's barracks, for an interview. after driving by the sound, getting lost in the fury for what seemed like miles, the green and red lettering descended upon my horizon, a sign no doubt. i parked my car, took the dog with me and ran towards the light. a warning from a strange, blue haired lady with pink lipstick: don't leave your dog out here, someone will surely steal her and sell her. loud and clear. so i brought her into quiznos, and fortunately they had a little foyer enclosed by two entrances...I was about to tie her under the display table, when a kind young employee volunteered to look after her. and then Ali, the manager, came out and asked if i would like to order outside so i could be with my pup. what would you like, he asked kindly. a veggie sandwich, i said, but i was also hoping to get some directions. i showed him my scribbles, courtesy of yahoo maps and he nodded and went to go look it up on his own computer.

i emerged fifteen minutes later with a bag full of goodies and my piece of paper, now with Ali's scrawls on the back. i was so grateful, the kindness of this man who had never known me.

maybe it was her face, so young and earnest, the face that melts everyone's heart. maybe it was mine, so lost and hopeful, that opened the door. whatever it was...i don't give the world enough credit. here was a man practicing a random act of kindness. am i so hardened that when i receive such acts i am so overwhelmed?

anyway. i love quiznos. i loved it before when it was quizmos, and i love it more now when i met Ali.

sensate

sen·sate
adj.
Perceived by a sense or the senses.
Having physical sensation.



this was a word used by a peer when describing what she had lost during medical school. the ability to feel, perceive, smell, hear, taste. she felt robbed of her ability to sensate.

she used it as a verb. i like this better.

i think i know what she means.

but this year has been different. i don't run as much anymore, so it is no longer a chore. but when i do...it can be magical. especially on a day like last Thursday, the morning of this class I took in Philly called the Healers' Art. Fifty degrees at 8 am on a January morning...my steps were easy, my breathing soft, my body weightless. a feather on the breath of god. poor luce did not want to run that day, so i took her back to my apartment and set out for my solitary trot, two feet not six.

that evening we drew pictures with cheap crayons: what had we lost?

today i locked myself out of my apartment. again. i had gone to work in the morning to complete an interview, came back home briefly to grab some grub and to take lucy out for a little walk, and then rushed out of my apartment only to find that my keys were in fact not in my coat pocket. which meant i could not take my car back to work. nor could i take my backpack with my consent forms out of my car to work.
so i walked to the shuttle, four blocks away. in the pouring rain. without an umbrella.

but i remained surpisingly unperturbed. i took the shuttle down to clinic. talked to one family without consent forms. ran back to the office (another block in the pouring rain sans umbrella) to make new copies of my consent forms. ran back to clinic and gave the families the forms to peruse. wet and disheveled the whole time.

i had left poor luce in the cage the whole time. because if i hadn't she would have completely devoured my copy of white teeth, which she has taken a preference to.

tonight d and i had a long talk about the pecking order. i told him about my own ob gyn story. i was starting to examine a young woman, carefully leaving the cervical exam out until after my resident arrived. but i noticed than when i approached her legs (to check for pitting edema or DVTs ) she froze. something was clearly not right. so i quickly covered her up and waited for my resident to arrive. when she did she told me to glove up, and i quietly told her i didn't think i should. she shot me a look, but waited until we left the room to ream me: this was an academic institution and my job was to learn.

delivery time. my resident told me to go in there and wait for her again. not exactly knowing what i was supposed to do in there...i certainly could not get ready until she was in the room, it was only my second delivery...i waited. can't small talk with a woman who is in labor, that much i knew without being told. when my resident entered the room, the woman whispered to her husband: do not let her touch me. she was referring to me, the medical student who hadn't laid a finger anywhere close to her vagina. my resident heard this and nonetheless motioned towards me to take my position between her legs. i let the lump form once again, the warm pools swell in heavy eyelids...and delivered her baby. I quickly cleaned up, offered a meek congratulations and burst into tears in the washroom.

in the morning (sign out for us, the night float), my resident told the staff that the woman had been sexually abused as a child and was in need of social work. not a glance thrown my way. i watched her with desperation, sadness, anger...and quickly left after sign out, not offering to help with antepartum rounds. let the tears run freely as i walked home, a lovely spring saturday morning. talked to d and cried, but he probably didn't get the whole story, my mumbling bumbling self narrating.

so i told him again. tonight. no tears, just lessons i've learned.

back to sensate: i definitely felt a lot of pain my third year of medical school. no loss there. but i didn't quite take the time to feel the beauty around me: indian summers (i am allowed to use this phrase), my puppy's soft ears (the goosiest part of her body), the smell of old christmas trees on the sidewalk.

i am grateful for this word. and i am grateful that i can fulfill its meaning.

the fire next time

what a great way to end my crappy day. kind of like how in some movies (crash, edward scissorhands) a snowfall in LA becomes this symbol of purification in what otherwise seems like hell. i started a kitchen fire and cleansed myself of the days work.

my intentions were good and pure. come home with groceries and dog food. kiss sister and dog on forehead to greet them. assume role of mother hen, now that both parents were in india. ask sister if she had eaten. ask dog if she had eaten. then proceed to clean out the oven so that i can make myself a warm Amy's Organic Pizza, so good and wholesome to nourish my own weary body.

i went into my bedroom to change when my sister knocked at the door, voice brimming: Tar! its on fire!!

I ran to the kitchen to find the oven erupted in smoke and fire. First thought: fire extinguisher. who knew where my parents kept it, as protective as they are, logic was not their forte. brief pause, a millionth of a second. then...react. fill glass with water and douse. keep dousing. open all windows. send meer and lucy into sun room and keep them there while i doused. the dousing softened the blaze, but the smoke continued and the embers still burned from below. i knew i needed an extinguisher and the only way to get one was to call 911.

I quickly banished meer and lucy out to the front, to await help. I turned on all the fans and walked outside to wait with them. The first two volunteers to show up ran in with their muddy boots and proceeded pull the lever...only to find that it didn't work. volunteer #2 ran outside to get another while volunteer #1 called for more help.

three fire trucks (sirens blowing), one squad car, 12 fire men, 2 police men, and 6 neighbors later we had our first ever block party. I schmoozed with the Meerows, congratulating them on their daughter's wedding. I smiled politely to the Digiovanni's who did not utter one word to my sister or myself, but managed to give both Imhoffs and Meerows pecks on the cheeks. I was teased by my dearest neighbors, Harry and Carol both in their 70s who have known my family and my uncle's family for over 25 years now....Carol said that we were perhaps the most exciting neighbors ever, as the last time she had seen this many lights was the day after my dad's plane was escorted by two F16s after another passanger had notified the airline of her suspicions: my dad and his comedy troupe du jour were playing "dumb charades" as they called it, and another lady on the plane was convinced they were hatching some evil terrorist plot. policemen and reporters hounded my parents for days after, and our street became the talk of the town.

Carol also made the comment that she didn't think there were this many firemen on the Park Ridge squad.

At the end of it all, we agreed: at least we know that someone is looking out for us. Or at least 12 men in firemen's uniforms will always be ready to put out your small kitchen fire.

the cause: potholders left below the oven. again brilliant moves on my parents part. but of course i should have checked under, because like the good immigrant family we are, we are above all hoarders. we stock and pile for the next kurukshetra. i shoulda known better.

we were left to clean the damages: muddied floors, black soot. lucy shit twice while watching the sirens in the front lawn.

i told my neighbors that i'll try to start another one next year so that we could do this again. they laughed...but not after making another joke about how I should learn how to cook before I got married. ba dum ching!

i feel purified, enlightened and whole again.

pink elephant

my abdominal aorta pulsates through my shirt and winter coat as I pump gas...and strangely the rhythm of both pumps feels the one and the same.

i don't think I was having an aneurysm. i think it was the pink elephant i swallowed that got stuck in my throat. initially i felt it as a squeezing sensation in my chest, then a lump in my throat and now my abdominal aorta. three different viscera, hollow and solid.

but now i am confusing you. the price i pay for driving three hours round trip, in the misty rain: out and back from connecticut's hinterland. i knew i was approaching desolation when radio stations slowly faded, dropping off one by one.

the pink elephant was in the room the moment i walked into her home. my interviewee was tiny-- probably no taller than 4'11, at 16 years of age. i found her difficult to gauge, with my primitive questions, and i think she felt the same about me. we tried to avoid the large absurd beast in the room, but then i had to ask: so tell me a little bit about how you found out?

until that point she danced around it gracefully, at first making me believe she didn't know it was true. she made me question her capacity, her judgement, her maturity. she was skilled, indeed, in the art of cloaking.

but my question opened the box. let me start from the beginning, she said.

she started. she stopped, head bent down, tears streaming. she asked me to stop the tape and left the room. i had made a child cry.

i stopped. i breathed, deeply in, and stopped. i closed my eyes so that my ears would be my only resources at that moment, magnification, megaphonation post blinding mutism. i heard her cry how she could not continue with the interview to her mother: this same woman whom i had heard moments before scream that she had already signed my fucking papers, now transformed into Mother. Console, nourish, love without condition.

Mother came out in her robe to greet me: what did you ask her? calmly, reservedly, softly i apologized to her and showed her my script. i asked your child about the pink elephant, and she dissolved. so now i have swallowed it in order to maintain some sense of self-preservation lest i disintegrate. she understood. and then she began to narrate.

i completed the interview, gave the child her gift certificate, tried desperately to re-empower her by making her aware of my intentions: my tapes, my surveys, my numbers.

and then i drove back, an hour and a half and let the pink elephant permeate.

last year i disintegrated. i accidently disclosed my patient's status to her sister, not knowing. end stage, PML, a quick and sudden deterioration, and the sister asked me, the medical student, why. and in front of my patient, who was silenced by the JC Virus that had invaded her speech centers, i narrated her story. i took her story away from her. we spent that morning narrating her story to our attending and other residents in front of her room, so it never occurred to me that no-one else knew. i vomited the pink elephant over and over that day. i cried to my mother and to dave. i disintegrated.

today i kept my professional composure. but at what expense? the pink elephant is rotting away at my insides and i have no idea how to get it out.

excuse my poor idioms and paucity of language. i grew up in a house where english was literal and malayalam was figurative so i never really learned either.

two little, four little, eight little feet...

of little indians.

sitting in cool beans in oradell nj, listening to maudlin morrisey, who today is brightening my mood because every day is like Sunday.

i just finished transcribing an interview...trying to get back into my research groove, now that step 2 is over (yay!) and life rolls by having completed another rite towards my indoctorination. i finished the 9 hour exam on the 30th, met my love on the corner of 75th and 3rd Ave after nearly three weeks had passed. We had dinner at the Candle Cafe, the place we had our own personal engagement dinner over a year ago October 23rd, the night after the day when he got down on bended knee, with his running shorts, thermal underwear and tube socks, and asked me to spend the rest of my life with him. i think you know the answer i gave him.

he met lucy for the first time and while he fell in love at first glance, we had a *discussion* about how i made this decision without him. i told him that it had been four and half years since I made any decision without him...kind of a lame excuse, since i actually had been thinking about him the whole time, and my mind and heart engaged in a dissociative fugue of sorts.

for most of my life, i've pretty much a soloist, marching to the arrhythmic beat of my own drummer. this is evident from the millions of video footage of me wandering aimlessly, lost in thought. further evidenced from the millions of stories my mom tells of me getting lost in department stores, of me often losing various valuables, including my piano teacher's check, even though my mother gave it to me just before she dropped me off, with less than 50 yards between her car and Mrs. Manus's front door. Sure I was *smart* enough to find my way to a security guard and let him or her know my three year old self could not find my mother. Sure it was only a check that could easily be voided. I've been charmed in more ways than one.

So when I met Dave four and a half years ago and we both made the decision to engage each other mind, body and soul, I had to learn to consider this person in every thought and action I performed. It was new, and strange...and at times it became an obsession. Because I had never really thought about anyone else before, and now I was thinking about him all the time. I could only plan my vacations/weekends/phone dates around him. I couldn't see a movie on my own, because I had to see it with him. I spent most of my days in berkeley, BD, on my own: catching flicks, grabbing grub from Intermezzo, running in the woods... it was a time when I only heard the patter of two feet, not four, or eight, hitting the soft earth on the fire trails behind the Lawrence- Berkeley Labs.

But now we are entering a more comfortable groove, he and I. One in which I periodically dance to the old familiar drummer in my head, and he is ok with it. At first he would wonder and wonder and wonder why I was so quiet, why I could go for hours without utterance. It made him nervous and uncomfortable. Was it something he said/did/thought? But he is beginning to understand...

And I am ok with the patter of four feet...now eight. I love Lucy when she lies quietly on my stomach, and I can feel her rhythm just a tad faster than mine. (Increased surface area to body ratio, I explained, with uncertain authority, to my sister.) I love Lucy a little less when she piddles in the house and lets out the smelliest farts my olfactories have had the privilege of meeting. Now I am no foreigner to the art of farts, and generally I find that the louder ones are less smelly than the silent ones. You can never hear Lucy's...her farts are meant for one special sense only.

My point? A new person, creature, with needs, whom I will have to love and let into my life and constantly be aware of. Less time for the drummer. It makes me stronger and much more independent than I would have ever imagined...as I have people to rely on me, I become more reliable.

One of my twelve year old kids that I interviewed gave me this definition of *independence*: "you're more reliable, your parents trust on you."

So in the last couple of weeks I panicked because I wasn't quite sure about where I fit in... not a new dilemma, an old one tried and true. But Dave and I talked and walked and mulled over Cold Stone ice cream about this fear and leaving behind. and we started to find peace, a separate peace.

I love Kelly Clarkson. Not ashamed to admit it in the least. Her rich voice and pop tart tunes get to me. especially when she sings about Miss Independent. Now, she's no Lauryn or Sarah or Cyndi or Amy and Emily...my cohort of trippin chicks. But she is one fabulous gal who is bound for Divadom. And I like it.
****

on a different note:
I read a quote by a starlet (not Kelly Clarkson) who admitted to her bread addiction. in fact she said "some people have a coke addiction, but I've got a bread addiction."

wtf. what has this world come to when we humble ourselves before the higher power and admit our defeat to BREAD? what have we come to when we compare bread to cocaine?

Lucy will never have such an addiction. She will always keep it real and remind us that we all need just a little love.