Tag: John Graham-Pole
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Marshmallows
John Graham-PoleClydesdale, Nova Scotia, Canada The writer E.B. White accused our society of being suspicious of anything non-serious. Thank the stars, then, for humour. I had a teenage patient with advanced cancer tell me after I had given him some none too hopeful news: “Lighten up, doc, I don’t need solemn doctors around me.” A…
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Twins
John Graham-PoleClydesdale, Nova Scotia, Canada Why was she taken? While you remain to question me for your school project? Renee had a project. Her seventh-grade class had been set the task of composing an essay on some aspect of American society. She had settled on tackling the American healthcare system, and after some thought had…
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Poppy power
John Graham-PoleGainesville, Florida, United States The poppy’s juice . . .brings the sleep to dear Mama— Sara Coleridge, Pretty Lessons in Verse for Good Children In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree— Samuel Coleridge, Kubla Khan, penned on waking from an opium-induced dream Of all God’s floral bounty, only papaver somnifera drips its beads…
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The truth of the imagination
John Graham-PoleAntigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada “All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances.” Life as performance art The bard got it right: we are all actors, whether stars or bit players. Our metaphors bespeak it: we make our entry onto life’s stage;…
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The company of butchers
John Graham-PoleAntigonish, Canada It’s 5am. I peer through fast-revolving doors and eye the light skim of snowfall. I’m aware of a deep shiver. It’s the breeze flapping my skimpy white coat, right? Don’t kid yourself, rank fear is what this is. This is my first 24-hour stint as a surgical dresser. This allegedly thrilling moment…
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First blood
John Graham-PoleAntigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street, London, 1970: I’m astounded I’ve landed one of the coveted G.O.S. senior resident jobs. The academic nature of the place immediately daunts me. Everyone bows down to its status as the foremost pediatric research hospital in Europe, perhaps in the world, the faculty…
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The surgeon
John Graham-PoleAntigonish, Canada Eli had once overheard an ENT nurse describe the sound of his artificial voice box voice as a cross between that of a toad and a crow—a voice any woman would hang up on fast. But right now a frail caw-croak is all he can summon. Jamming the phone’s receiver close to…