Tag: abdomen
-
Saying goodbye
Anthony Papagiannis Thessaloniki, Greece “A walk into life’s sunset.” Photo by author. Her head is bald, her face pale. Only a couple of weeks have passed since her latest cycle of chemotherapy, which imposed its ravages but offered no benefit. The disease is marching relentlessly ahead, the survival horizon drawing closer each day. She…
-
Our celiac boarder
Charles Halsted Davis, California, United States Inflammation of the intestinal mucosa may lead to villous atrophy of the small intestine. 2018. Scientific Animations. Via Wikimedia. CC BY-SA 4.0 I listened with care to her history of weight loss, grain aversion, abdominal cramps, and frequent diarrhea. Her great-grandfather was an early California settler who had…
-
Munchausen by Proxy
Charles Halsted Davis, California, United States My last patient of the morning was a teenage girl, just turned eighteen. She walked in slowly, her face in agony, apprehensive. Her mother said the pain had begun at age twelve, about when she started to menstruate, yet it never let up, periods or not. Refusing food,…
-
Undignified
Christopher Schayer New Haven, Connecticut, United States Reading Devotions to Grandfather, Albert Ankler, 1893, Switzerland-Bern In walks another set of new faces. More white lab coats, asking their questions, poking and prodding at me, lifting my Johnny coat as if I’m a mere object for their scientific minds to investigate. They come and they…