Lose 7 Pounds in 30 Hours–Without Boring Exercise!
As soon as I’d clambered into the house, I waddled into the bathroom and weighed myself. Two pounds heavier than when I’d entered the hospital. I put a tape measure around the belly That in itself took effort. Almost forty-eight inches. Wow! Given the five or six cups of hospital food ingested in the past […]
Borborygmi Theater
A left-behind stethoscope was our ticket into the Borborygmi Theater. A nurse or doctor had momentarily forgotten the thing. With a conspiratorial glance, Kay and I began listening through it, the way kids play with a doctor kit. Fun’s hard to come by in a hospital room, after all, and I hadn’t had any fun […]
The Overnight Pariah
Take your journal to the hospital, and a couple of pens. You never know when its seems wisest to stay awake by scribbling your way through the dark. I was becoming desperate for the four-hours-straight stretch of sleep that is essential to steering clear of fibromyalgia pain. I could sense it hovering out there, ready […]
Fools of the Gods
The first breakfast that arrived at my hospital bedside astonished me. In one corner of the large tray sat a big cup of a dark brown liquid probably meant to be coffee, topped with a plastic cap to prevent spillage. Next to it sat a "milker", which is not a miniature Swiss miss leaning her […]
“Talking Stones,” a winner
Happy homecoming in more than one way–my poem “Talking Stones”, which I wrote with poet friends on retreat in Maui two years ago, has placed in Little Red Tree Press’ competition and will be published in its anthology late this summer. Not only that, I get a cheque. Don’t quit your day job for poetry, […]
I AM CYBORG–HEAR ME whimper
My daughter said I look like a cyborg. A many-pronged thingy fits into my back, dead center, keeping my mind clear and my bod foggy. An IV feed perces my left hand, flowing in electrolytes and mysterious clear liquids. My torso is adored with about eight sticky, soft-plastic circles armed with metal nipples, and numerous […]
The Knife
Naturally, far from everything was finished as planned before surgery morning dawned. I had contemplated going over useful information with my daughter, such as where my will is kept, or how to ward off various slings and arrows of outrageous fortune which might reasonably be expected to fling themselves our way in the near future. […]
The Last Supper
My daughter is distraught at the thought of her mother being cut into—or perhaps it’s simply fear of losing the one rock in her life. She insists on cooking dinner for me. Tomorrow, no food is allowed, and at four p.m. the purgation starts. That means tonight is my last bit of gustatory fun—for a […]
Breakfast of Champions
I out-pilled my mother. About two years ago, when my nonagenarian mother was in a health crisis so severe doctors and family all thought she would die within hours, I got the bright idea of running her meds through a conflict-checker online. For a lawyer, that verges on smart thinking. Lawyers check for conflicts in […]
The Ghostmaker
The booking clerk at the OR called: the anaesthetist wanted to meet with me. It dawned on me then that this promises to be a serious surgery. I’ve never met with an anaesthetist before. Most of us can hardly spell the word, although, by my age, most humans have had occasion to fall under his […]