Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: foot amputation

  • 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…

  • My first (do no harm) patient

    Paul KaragiannisChicago, Illinois, United States The door to room 7403 was opened slightly, and a TV inside hummed the midday news—nervous but resolute, we knocked and crossed the threshold. Inside, sitting knees-up in bed, his height accentuating the awkward angularity of his position, sat Mr. C., Bed No. 2, United States Veteran, my first patient…