Muriel Murch ~

You are a big man, a little heavy, but nothing
that can't be fixed by daily, brisk walks
or swept away by a
dose of cancer and a blast of treatment.
You have been called from your glass enclosure
to help me.

A productive, bronchial cough
is still with me--too long.
Chinese practitioners call this a lurking pathogen
tossing antibiotics into my weary kidneys to excrete
as a mindful French woman
with her midday steamed leeks.

I was an intern, doing a rotation in the coronary-care unit (CCU) of a large urban hospital. It was very challenging: The patients had complex medical issues, and my fellow residents and I were given lots of responsibility for their care. Still, I felt I was finally getting the hang of residency.

One of the first patients I saw was Mrs. Smith, a middle-aged woman who had come to the emergency room with chest pain. We admitted her to determine whether she was suffering from coronary-artery disease that might lead to a heart attack.

Mrs. Smith was a kind, soft-spoken woman. Her daughter, Crystal, in her twenties, had inherited her mother's brown eyes and hair. She lived with her mother, was very involved in her care and made sure that we knew her full medical history.

"You're twenty-seven-and-a-half weeks pregnant."

As I lay on the exam table, time froze.

How can this be? I wondered dazedly. I'm a second-year medical student. I've just completed a course in female reproduction and endocrinology. How could I have missed the signs?

I attribute my obliviousness to the surgery I'd gone through only months before: the removal of a twenty-seven-pound, mucus-filled ovarian cyst. My lack of menstrual periods was nothing new; they'd been irregular for years. My recent abdominal bloating must, I'd thought, be the cyst recurring. I hadn't worried about it because, frankly, I'd always put my health and personal life second to my future career as a physician.