Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Anna Kander

  • To my friend with diabetes, on losing her foot

    Anna KanderIowa City, IA, USA You walk sixty-seven years while childhooddiabetes, against your iron will, poisons your peripheralnerves with sugar, and the muscles of your feet, starvedof circulation, gradually dissolve. Your toes gnarl and curl backward at wildangles, as if aspiring to adorn gargoyles. (You’vealways had a dragon-and-knight heart.) Unruly tendonsdraw themselves into bows, aiming…