The Little Words Mean the Most

When you try to count the raindrops

 

you hear

tinfoil rain

cat scratch rain

sand through your hand rain

runnels of rubber roofing nails

drowning rain

rice rain

cranberries rain

snare banging rain

monkey paw rain

rainy rain rain

 

and you hope it never stops

 

 

2020, January: A Year Ago

 

A sweet volunteer gives me a self-sticking VISITOR badge. Please follow me. January in New England. I stick the badge on my LL Bean puffy coat. Which I shed because suddenly I'm hot.

My gentle volunteer leads me though the maze of an overtaxed urban hospital; he'll be a doctor himself in a decade. He introduces me to Jeff, the upbeat ER nurse overseeing Simone.

@ 1 PM, I'm holding Sim One's hand. She's in and out.

A young doctor with dark red hair arrives; there's another nurse and an X-ray technician. Doctor asks me to wait outside for a few minutes. I disappear. The ER entry is full of uniforms: EMTs, fire fighters, police, hospital staff. No place to rest your eyes. Patients moan on gurneys.

---

Then the tests are done. I have her hand again. Nothing to it; might as well be a latex mitten. Simone's in a lofty, windowless room with lots of equipment jammed in; charming as an oil-change garage. It's all business. And busy. She's on a drip. Small, clear pearls of pain relief shuttle down the tubing. Things simplify. Beautify. Headache? Jeff says she's on something called a "migraine cocktail." It's a "try everything, see what happens, adjust" cocktail.

I'm in the corner where they drop the mop. Us: a couple. The patient with her other. Without super powers. The patient pees a lot. I'm just there to nod. Spousal unit; there, to sign forms as needed.

 

 

 

Modern medicine

 

Modern medicine.

         I'm amazed repeatedly.

         Had the privilege of interviewing a pediatric heart surgeon: a long-distance runner since college, he successfully fixed a newborn's heart; a heart no larger than my adult thumbnail; a heart the size of a "be my valentine" drugstore candy. He made that heart whole and healthy.

         Had the privilege of interviewing a unique (on earth) research physician, daughter of an Italian paint manufacturer (her dad coated winning Ferraris, when paint mattered to victory). She'd cured Bubble Boy, a child born without an immune system (neither his family nor his friends dare touch him ... until her complicated, unpleasant cure; now, let's go sledding!). That was just the beginning of her miracles.

         Miracles walk the earth all the time. If you don't keep up with science, you wouldn't know that (certain asshole politicians you can probably name without a second thought hope/pray you're that ignorant).

         But science has surrounded the modern world.

         With real-world "saints."