Wholebodectomy

I need a new brain
this old one has thought
too much, too much negativism
thought dangerous thoughts
I need new eyes
these old ones have seen
too much, cried too many tears
seen too many nightmares
I need new ears
these old ones have heard
too much, heard sad stories
heard lies, stagnant promises
I need a new mouth
this old one has spoken
too much, too much hurt
spoken too many words of regret
I need new hands
these old ones have touched
too many wrong things
touched all the wrong people
I need new legs
these old ones have walked
too many places, bad places
places that were forbidden
I need new feet
these old ones have hurt
too much, trying to fit
in other shoes
shoes that were either too large
or too small
Lastly, I need a new heart
this old one is broken
broken with fractures of love
sutures of pain
I need a whole new life
encased in a whole new body
I need to be whole again

Sharon D. Brown
Office of Student Financial Aid

---

Please, No Pain

My brain has been crusting
like the callouses on my heels
from permanent uprightness.
My skull is slowly cracking
as the concrete and steel pound,
returning my weight in reverberation:
down corridors, upstairs, and down the many stairs.
My brain sweeps knowledge
into sulci, accumulating
as the hinge grease
gathers dust on her door.


... Then her words cauterize
etchings in my brain.
"Why? I don't understand.
I don't want to die. Please?"
Asking, her eyes punch holes.
I feel a twinge
rising from her writhing
bowels into my arm, undulating.
Then a vice begins to clamp my hand
between its jaw, sweat lubricating the grip
"Make it stop, please."
Our hope seared
by the heat of holding hands,
I feel her ache trample across my gut.


Heavy legged I pause outside her room.
Blood rushes tensing veins,
seizing all hair roots—in unison
throbbing an exorcism:
I hear a drill bore a hole in my skull
to suction out all the useless brain.
And I feel no pain.

Dipali V. Apte
Rush Medical College, '88

---

Medical Indifference

I entered the dark, yet well lit room
A surgical ICU in whom,
Lay bodies whose souls when departing the womb
Brought joy and hope, but now only gloom.


Decades have passed since their first cry,
Yet we're unaware of the life that's gone by.
With indifference our shield against those who may die,
Who will mourn joy and hope, if not you and I?

Mark Loafman
Rush Medical College, '88

---

A Music Lesson

Our gifts as healers are not always manifested in the hospital or in our physician's robes. We can befriend, soothe, and comfort those in need in a variety of environments.

I know wherever I go I shall always wonder whether Danny is conducting his orchestra, whether Jim is practicing for American Bandstand, and ultimately whether the class still takes walks to hear nature's sounds and see "those cows made of milk."

I think of trying to teach sixty-two mentally retarded men to waltz and their joy in learning a few steps to music. How often our fifteen-man choir would repeat a song in order to memorize it and how great the reward in performing it for our parents at the school musical.

Wise teachers say that they learn constantly from their students and that the portion of themselves that they offer as teachers is returned ten-fold in the lessons they receive.

When I left they asked me to return as their doctor when I finish school. Each time I go back to visit they ask if I'm a doctor yet. They are a part of my life now, and I shall always return, if only to say hello. You must not hurt their feelings; to elves such a wound is inevitably deep.

Yet when I see them now, I go knowing it's more for my benefit than for theirs. I want to learn all they have to teach me and to see the world through their eyes again. Some call them God's special children. I know they have blessed my life.

They tell me they sing our songs still; I know I shall sing their song always.

Susan Arjmand
College of Medicine, '89

---

The Golden Years

Green and orange murky liquids
dawdle on a nightstand by the phone that
wakes on Christmas and Mother's Day.
Three handmade blue afghans that
kept her busy for a month cover the thin
mattress of a single bed.
Crochet hooks dangle from a bunny
slipper to be sent Federal Express to a
child she's held twice.
Lavender sachets try but can't hide
the smell of age amd liniment that escorts
you through the door.
A woman packed away like a stuffed
animal you discard without the strength to
throw away,
she smiles.
A doomed planet whose time is running out,
she looks at me and in comic frantic eyes
forms an apology—
that she dare to soak
ten minutes of her doctor's precious time.

Ann Stotts, undergraduate
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

---

The Sea Within Straits

We took the southbound train towards Osaka and my father complained about how many times he had to go and try to use the bathroom.

"The damn Japanese," he said. "All this damn raw cooking. I hate to think what my plumbing will be like after a week of my in-laws' sashimi."

My mother looked out the window and said nothing. My father and Suzy's husband, Mark, shared a laugh. My sister Suzy slept the entire train ride, lay curled up across two coach seats with her head in my mother's lap. She really must be over-tired, I thought. That's all. She just needs a little more sleep and after a week with the relatives in Honshu she'll be fine. My father said; "Of course, it's all changed now, Mark, since the war. They were a defeated people back then. But nowadays don't let their humility fool you. Underneath they really think they are better than you, even though we taught them everything they know.

"I know exactly what you mean, Mr. Harris, sir," Mark said. "Underneath they're all still peasants, especially the women. Now you take this train, for example. Modern, right? Even got Western-style toilets. But the other day a Jap climbed up on one so he could squat down to use it," and my father turned pale and smiled and said; "don't remind me, Mark. I've gotta try again."

That night my father fell sick. He kept saying it was the cooking, but we all started to think otherwise. Every few minutes throughout the night he got up to try to urinate. "Only a few drops come out each time," he said. "But I've gotta go so bad." We were staying in a small ryokan — a traditional inn — and my mother was embarrassed that the hotel keeper would hear the toilet flushing all night-long.

Flush, and I felt a pain in my side.

"Are you all right?" I asked, looking out from my door. "It's near midnight."

"Yeah, I'm okay, Midori," he said, coming out. But his skin was the color of rice paper and there was sweat beaded up underneath his eyes. "I don't know what it is. Too much sake or something the other night."

And the toilet kept flushing and the pain kept piercing into my side. At three a.m. I heard voices in the hallway. I got up, opened the door, and saw my mother and Suzy there. Suzy came into my room. For the first time in the four days we'd been traveling, her eyes looked alert and she spoke to me confidently.

"You'll have to talk to him tomorrow," she said. "You'll have to make sure he goes to the doctor."

"What about Mark?"

"Mark wants to take him back to Yokohama where there's an American doctor on the base. I think that's foolish."

"So do I."

"Good. So tomorrow you'll have to talk Papa into seeing a local doctor. You know how stubborn he is — and especially about things Japanese. You're the only one who can get through to him, Midori."

The pain pricked into my side again and I felt very sick. I tried to keep my hands from shaking and sat down on the edge of the bed. After all, I was the one who lived only for pleasure, right? For my own good time.

I was the one without family, without responsibility, without cares. I looked straight up at Suzy and said; "I'm not Wonder Woman, am I? For the last four days everyone has been coming to me and saying, 'You have to talk to Suzy. You're the only one who can get through to her.' And now you come in here and tell me I'm the only one who can get through to Papa."

But in the morning Father wouldn't go. He didn't like the idea of ending the vacation by traveling all the way back to Yokohama Bay and he "didn't hold no court with going to some acupuncturist. I'm all right," he said. "Soon as we get to the relatives and rested I'll be just fine."

We had a four hour delay in Himeji. While waiting for the next train out, we walked down into the central shopping district, all gaily decorated with lanterns and yellow streamers, and had lunch in a Donburi cafe. Both my father and sister looked better that morning and since the subject had been broached the night before, on the way back to the train station I took my sister's arm and we fell a few paces from the group.

"You know, the whole family is worried about you, Suzy," I said. "Everyone seems to think you should relax a little more."

"Work is how I relax." she said and tried walking on ahead. "And I don't much care what people think of me."

"Fine," I said. "Then think of your career. You place so much emphasis on your medical research. But what chance do you have of lasting on a job if you don't get along with people?" She let me take her arm again and we walked together slowly. "You've been working too hard. You're always trying to keep up with the Japanese — outdo them, even. But you forget that we're only half-Japanese. The other half is American and Americans play as hard as they work. Don't you do sports anymore?"

"No."

"Not even swimming?"

"No."

"When we get to Beppu, to the sea, we'll swim out to Ito. You were always such a strong swimmer, Suzy. In high school everyone expected me to win championships just like you. You alway said you'd help me with my breast stroke. We'll go swimming, all right?"

"If you want."

We boarded the Osaka-bound green train. Papa seemed in a good mood for a while and we all played cards; first tatemono and then bridge, with the scenery of tile-roof- homes and bright green farmers' plots outside. Suzy laughed delightedly whenever she won a round, but my mother was the best player. Quiet, steady, cautious, she played each hand as if it was a payment on a house, and if wasn't long before she had more points than anyone.

We bought sandwiches on the train and planned to travel the whole night through, arriving in Honshu in the morning. But Father was feverish and started pacing up and down in the passageway around eleven p.m.

"Everything's all right," he said, but I went to stand with him by the window. He kept looking out even though it was dark outside and all you could see was an occasional light in a country house shaking by.

"Are you sure, Papa?"

He shook his head grimly.

"No. To tell you the truth, I haven't been right in two days. I thought maybe walking around would help, but it hasn't."

"Maybe you should sit down." I led him to an empty cabin. I brought a blanket down from up top and wrapped him in it, then held his hand. The skin was very cold around his fingers and that made me feel cold too. I tried not to show my worry because I wanted Papa to remain calm, but when I touched his lower stomach — it was bloated and swollen like a tea-bag — I was afraid.

"I'll be right back, Papa," I said, and returned to our cabin.

"We're going to have to stop in Osaka and get him to a doctor. He'll go this time."

"In Osaka!" My mother put her hands up to her temples, Suzy stared ahead. "A night in a town such as that—"

It was raining when we arrived in Osaka. I had Mark stay with Suzy. "Will she be all right?'O I asked, and he shrugged. From the train station, I hurried outside to hail a cab. I helped Mother and Father to the taxi, then found myself telling the driver to take us to the nearest hospital or all-night clinic. He drove slowly first up one street, circled back, then down another. The one he thought was open was closed. He brought us to a clinic. The rain came down so viciously it was hard to see the building.

Mother counted out the money for the driver while I led Papa up the steps into the private clinic. The place was very old and we were wet. I spoke to the attendant who took my father into another room and said the doctor would be in shortly. Mother came in and she and I sat down on two wooden chairs. We were both wet and we tried to laugh about that. The attendant brought over a very short form and Mother filled it out.

But for some reason the doctor left the door open to the triage and we could hear everything that was going on. We could hear my father's worried voice as the doctor explained in English that they would have to insert a catheter up past the swollen prostate until it reached his bladder — then we could hear my father's screams coming first as little gasps and then as longer, louder howls. My mother and I tried to think of something funny. I said, "At least Papa gets to speak English with someone."

Then the doctor came out and asked us to give him some assistance. He said he wanted to drain the bladder a little more and so we followed him into the room. There lay my father as naked as a newborn — and that's in fact what I thought of, seeing his pink body and hairless shins against the sheet. He was smiling and the doctor pressed down against his side and I was asked to make sure the catheter led properly into the bed-pan. I had to empty the bed-pan twice; the doctor said held emptied it once himself already, and we all managed a nervous laugh over that.

I went out into the street again, into the rain, into another taxi, to get the prescription filled. The doctor had said Father should be all right for the rest of the trip; that he would leave the catheter inside with a little plug attached; would give Father some medicine to reduce the swelling of the prostate, but that once back in the States Father would most likely have to get his gland removed. Mother stayed behind to pay in cash while Dad dressed. I went out for the prescription.

The worst was behind us, I thought. But at the train station my sister talked to a policeman. Mark sat near the baggage looking glum. The policeman said; "There's your family now," and Suzy broke down into convulsive, hysterical sobs and threw her arms around my father. All courage drained out of me when I saw that. Father looked ahead impassively, tried to calm her, saying, "It's nice you care so much, Suzy, but. . . " and even my mother looked near tears as we all saw the truth of what Mark had been saying throughout the trip: She really was ill.

I watched my sister blubber against my father's chest and ball up her fists behind his shoulders. Father's problem at least was physical. Overwork, strain, marriage problems — whatever it was for her, it all seemed so impenetrable.

It was 2:30 in the morning before we finally got to a hotel. My mother told me the next morning that all night long I kept mumbling in Japanese. I'd had a dream in which my father didn't take his medicine on time and my sister, who stood with arms uplifted on the top of a mountain range, would not come down.

That day was my sister's thirty-second birthday. We had dinner in a garden restaurant and the next morning resumed our journey. We rode parallel to the Kobe Highway and saw the Inland Sea and I must admit that after almost twenty straight hours of sleep, Suzy's eyes looked better. We even sang together on the train — some of the songs we'd made up as children — and I allowed myself to believe again that everything would be all right.

My mother must have believed that too, because she returned to her old ways — overprotective, blind to any weakness in her first born, turning aside all criticism of the Great Success. She even said to me during the train ride; "One day you'll be married, Midori, just like Mark and Suzy, and we'll all be very proud."

I'll never settle down," I answered sharply. "Those are your silly dreams," and my mother said. "It is a strange oyster that has no shell."

"You come along too, Midori," my mother said at the beach apartment. "Just the three women. We go for walk." And I knew what she wanted. At long last the time had come to talk to my sister. I had told my mother before that maybe she should be the one to confront Suzy, for after all, they had been like sisters once. "If we go for a walk," my mother had said. "Then, when the time is right, if we go for a walk."

So the three of us found ourselves walking slowly along the sands — my sister well in front, me in the middle, my mother several yards behind. I felt so frustrated seeing my sister withdrawn, despondent. I stopped and let my mother catch up.

"I thought you were going to have that talk with Suzy," I said.

"Oh, I don't know," my mother shrugged. "Maybe if we get a chance to sit. Then, when the time is right, if we get a chance to sit."

I set off after Suzy. The waves were rolling loudly into the wet white sands and I caught up with my elder sister. I'm not sure what I would have said, but she began, slowly, wearily.

We walked further.

"For the last two years Mark and I have been trying," she said. "And the more we try, the farther apart we've become."

I looked back and saw my mother examine a shell or pebble from the sand. She smiled and started after us. As Suzy and I walked along, I signaled my mother to stay back.

"I feel so detached. Always. The way a seventy or eighty year old woman must feel. I'm only thirty-two and it's as if I've missed the train. All I've gotten for my money is a ticket stamped "Maturity."'

"That's not maturity," I said. "It's self-indulgence. When I turned twenty-one, I thought I was a young-old woman too."

"You'll always be my little sister," Suzy said, "and I love you for that." When we got back to the beach apartment, my father and Mark were using the hibachi to heat up coals. My mother suggested that Suzy and I go for a swim first and then dinner would be ready.

In the swimming pool, at dusk, my sister and I spoke some more. I wanted to be able to try and open up to her and when she asked me why I hadn't married Frank, a boy I'd known a long time ago, I said "Oh, we really wanted to" — which was a lie — "I've never told this to anyone, Suzy, but Frank and I really did think about it and we were ready to elope."

My sister seemed changed swimming in the pool. She was happy again. Talking together, splashing in the pool, it was the closest we had been in eight or ten years. She seemed delighted as she came swimming towards me with long strokes from the other end. How much I'd idolized her as a child. And she was happy because she thought she had re-found her little sister.

She was happy and I felt sorry for her. She wanted me to be that little girl again and that was gone. And that very wanting was what made her happy momentarily, turned her eyes bright, made her seem young again.

We got up onto the pool deck and started toweling ourselves off. It was growing darker and I looked at her body as she placed first one leg, then the other, on the deck chair to rub them dry. She was wearing an old-fashioned bathing suit. She must have carried it around the world with her for god-only-knows how long. She had lost a lot of weight since coming to Japan. Looking at her was like staring at an old photo in an album. I was ten years old and she was seventeen. We were at a pool in Newport Beach. It was summertime in California.

Carlos Ramet, undergraduate
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

---

Sudden Death

"I wish . . . .
You see it
stamped upon their faces
Soundless look
a scream
echoing in anguish
along the darkened corridor
as they stumble
too late
from the quiet room.


It came unheralded
this death
this ultimate of life
giving no warning
instant finality.


"I wish..........."
(I could have said 'I love you'?
gathered in my arms
that dear, beloved form
walked one more time . . . .
asked for forgiveness . . . .
what?)


What does it matter now
with only wishing left —
poor comfort
this comfortless night.

Jacqueline L. Jones
Occupational Therapy
College of Associated Health Professions

---

Keeping a Junkie Alive

Here, try this one, she says
pointing to her last good vein.
"This one's for emergencies."
This must be that emergency
because she is dying.
The IV is put in her scarred arm.
She may live,
for now,
for this night full of her blood and cries.
Tomorrow, when she is better,
when her heart and lungs are strong,
and this night is gone—
she'll squeeze this night into a new syringe
and inject its pain
in the vessel saved for emergencies,
like her death,
her life.

Bonnie Salomon
College of Medicine '87

---

Walking One Afternoon on Ashland Avenue

I walk one afternoon on Ashland Avenue:
Rain drips the way grill grease does
onto the black coals below, but
here the charcoal becomes the sooty fluid that slurries down drain holes.

A-trains and B-trains carve notes in the haze
every fifteen minutes to a punctual beat.
Red Caps and Taxi Cabs idly stand outside St. Luke's lobby.
Cook County squats on one city block, bleakly ahead,
in whose haunches is an ER entrance:
ambulances race screaming,
gaining then losing pitch,
in a forever pulsating cacophony.


Passing under the tracks
as an El thunders and sparks lightning
when the wheels chip off specks of molten steel,
there is a one-toned din
resembling the uniformly slate sky.
Man approaching me mouths words lost to my ears.
Just as we pass, like two cars
whose pupils never meet except at rush-hour speeds,
he repeats with a returned voice
aided by imploring eyeballs the size of manhole covers:


"Do you have a dollar or a transfer?
(I wait for the whole sales-pitch.)
Here take as many of these—
(In his outstretched hand is a wad of black pens.) I need
to get to the South side.
Ibeen there (pointing to a side of County) two days;
Ispent all my money on these.
(His free hand shakes loose a labelled bottle of orange-white pills.)
Convinced, I take a pen for a quarter,
and pass him.


As I review a patient's records
in my Professional Building office
that overlooks the Polk Street Station,
through a transparent wall of windows,
I see the man, tugging at his plastic showercap,
now outside the station, accosting
ones then twos of commuters, still selling
his "COOK COUNTY SCHOOL OF NURSING" pens
to collect enough
for a ride home.

Dipali V. Apte
Rush Medical College, '88

---

A Skeptic on Spiritual Healing

"Heal thyself"
The mind said to me
And I obeyed and doctors refused
And now I lie accused
of suicide
The mind lied!
I killed myself listening
Heal myself I failed to do
Besides the spirit,
one needs a doctor too.

Feiruz Shehadi
College of Architecture, Art and Urban Planning

---

Cherish the Life

We created him with our love,
and slowly,
he formed so perfectly within me.
A tiny sphere of union,
folding and shaping life
into our long-awaited dream.


The beginning shadows from previous loss
faded at the first audible beat,
and soon,
the soft touch of life danced within me.
And the livelier little forces to come
were welcomed by us both.
Eachmove,
perceived
withconcentration, awe
and love.


Onlypatience would bring the moment,
that magical moment,
whenour little surprise package would open.
Eachday of patience was rewarded by hope
growing stronger and stronger,
closer and closer....


But the day came too soon.
We were not ready—the three of us.
First, little twinges,
tightening, then
Regular, with a purpose.
Nature tried to tell me, but
I did not listen.


Even in the hospital hopes were high.
The force was stopped, unnaturally.
Hooked to I.V. and monitor, I lay
on my side
"Just hold on three weeks" ....
but minutes were hours.
My heart tap danced from the medication,
sleep didn't come.


A visit from the nurse....
trouble finding the beat,
called for help....
still no beat,
do an ultrasound.
Searching, searching....

Surrounded by tall dark figures
staring at the still image on the screen,
silence told me what they could not say.
I lay,
cold, numb, unfeeling.
There was no pain.
There were no tears.
There was no more dancing in my womb.

Ariadne Lukas, Graduate Student
Medical Social Work
College of Associated Health Professions
First Place Prize

---

Hospice

Let me go home
to be with those who love me.
Time will come
for your postmortems soon enough.


Are you angry,
physician,
that you cannot heal me?
That all your science
comes to nothing?
Is that why
you keep me chained—
monitoring my dying,
rather than letting me go free
to live out my last days?


I'll let you dull my pain
if you'll give me
a hand to hold
instead of charting
the awkward course
of my last days.


I little care for all your science now—
I only want—
what do I want?
Let me go home—
you spend your anger elsewhere.
I have no wish to prolong my dying—
only my life.

Jacqueline L. Jones
Occupational Therapy
College of Associated Health Professions

---

The Death of Louis

I wrapped Louis well in blankets, gently placed him on the back seat of the jeep and drove to the morgue. As I was driving my mind tried to sort out the events of the past few days.

I remember when Andremez, the Haitian nurse first brought Louis to me. She had traveled for two days, on dirt roads, through narrow mountain passes, and through flowing streams to find the medical help that he needed. She went to every hospital in the capital city, Port-au-Prince, but none would admit him, being told that there was no room. In desperation, she came to me for help, hoping that the hospitals would not turn down a request that an American made.

My heart broke when I first saw Louis. His head was twice as large as normal, his parents say that was he was born this way. I was surprised that he could live for five years without the hydrocephales being treated. His eyes were infected, red, oozing, and so large that his eyelids could not close over them. He had a strange resemblance to the Star Wars character Yoda. His limbs were pencil thin and his stomach was bloated. He was comatose, and I knew that he would soon die of dehydration and malnutrition if help could not be found.

Andremez and I went back to all the hospitals, once again asking for help. They all turned us down. As we were driving the jeep to the last hospital, I prayed that God would provide what we needed. When we got to Bon Repos Hospital, I went straight to the children's ward, and noticed that there was one empty bed. I then went to the hospital administrator, and asked that the bed be given to Louis. He looked at me and said that he would not waste a good bed on a retarded child, but did offer to give me the medicine and supplies needed to treat him at home.

Andremez and I returned back to the orphanage where I worked. She worked with me for the first few hours. Together we started the IV and placed an NG tube. I kept Louis in my room, so that I could keep a close eye on him. I began the vigil that I had so often been through. Tube feedings of rehydration formula every two hours. The slow progression of protein feedings as his kidneys began to work. Postural drainage every two hours to drain the fluids out of the lungs and stop the pneumonia. Andremez needed to leave to return to her village. I told her that I would send a radio message later telling her how Louis is doing, and would use the code word Yoda. She asked why Yoda, and as I tried to explain to her what a movie was, and what Star Wars was, I realized that my efforts were futile. I finally answered her question with a why not Yoda.

All night long I sat up with Louis, patting him on the back and singing to do the postural drainage. I checked his IV and began the protein feedings through the tube. I cleaned his eyes and placed the antibiotic ointment in them. Between tube feedings, I would lay down in bed with Louis in ray arms, my hand placed in his back. I did this so that if he stopped breathing, I could wake up and start CPR. We both had a rough night.

When morning came I went to take a shower and asked Louisa, one of the Haitian nannies, to sit with Louis. As I was rinsing the soap out of my hair she came running into the shower room, telling me to come quickly. As I hurriedly dressed, I asked her what was wrong, and she explained to me that there was something coming out of Louis's nose. I told her that it was a tube that helps the child eat. She said that there was something coming out of his other nose also.

When I returned to my room I saw a worm crawling out of his nose. It must have followed the NG tube out of his stomach. I pulled the worm out and tried to calmly figure out what to do next. I knew that the protein feeding I was giving him would help the worms grow bigger, and would eventually rob him of any protein. I also knew that the medicine to kill the worms would also weaken him further. I decided to give him the worm medicine, hoping that the less worms there are, the more protein he would absorb, and the faster he would become stronger.

His first diaper I changed after starting the worm medicine contained mostly worms, enough to fill two cups full. I brought the diaper to the garbage fire to burn, sure now that I had made the right decision to start the worm medicine.

When I returned to my room, all the nannies were there staring at Louis. They said that he was cursed by the devil, and that he should not be allowed here. I explained to them that he was ill, like many of the children at the orphanage, and that hopefully with medicine and prayers, he would get better.

With each hour, he seemed to improve. By early afternoon he was awake and alert, moving about in bed. I tried to explain to him where he was and that I was taking care of him for Andremez, but I am not sure how much he understood. All he could do was sit up in bed and stare at me.

Since he was doing so well, I decided to walk to the mission house and eat dinner with the other Americans. It was so good to speak English again, to not always be translating your thoughts into Creole. As we talked of Reagan's polyps I was reminded of all the empty hospital beds in America. What I would give to have one of those beds for Louis.

When I returned to the orphanage, the other children called me to come look at Louis. I was afraid that there was more worms, but I was instead pleasantly surprised. Louis had crawled out of bed and was beginning to walk around the orphanage. He walked so funny, it looked like the duck walk my Kindergarden teacher made me do so long ago. I suppose that it helped Louis keep his balance by lowering his center of gravity with his large head. When he saw me and smiled, my heart lit up. He duck-walked and crawled into my lap. We sat together on the front porch as I talked with the other nannies.

We returned to my room when it was time for the next tube feeding, and afterwards went to bed. I awoke about an hour later when I noticed that Louis's breathing had become irregular. His lungs had begun to fill with fluid, and his heart had started to fail.

All night long I sat with him, watching him become weaker and weaker. At around 6 a.m. he looked up at me, weakly smiled, and closed his eyes. He was still alive, but in a deep coma. At 8a.m. he soiled his diaper. It was filled with more worms than I had ever seen in one place. As I was changing his diaper, I could hear the rattle in his chest become more pronounced. I took him into my arms and rocked him, singing to him the songs I had so often sung to him before. After a few labored breaths, he died in my arms.

When I got to the morgue, I could barely walked as I carried Louis into the building. I was greeted by the morgue clerk. He unwrapped Louis and returned my blankets to me. As I was quietly saying goodbye to Louis, the clerk took him by the ankles and threw him into a metal box on the floor. I cringed when I heard his head crack as it hit the floor. I turned on the clerk, releasing all the frustration of the past few days. I told him that this was my child, whom I loved dearly, and how dare he treat him like that. The clerk just shook his head and walked away as if I was crazy. I was surprised at the intensity of my feeling for Louis. I had sat with him, sang with him, and, unknowingly, had fallen in love with him.

The next stop I had to make was at the radio station to send a message to Andremez. I simply stated that Yoda had passed on.

By the time I returned to the orphanage, I was exhausted. As I fell into bed, I barely noticed two-year-old Pierre who had crawled into bed with me to cuddle. The next thing I knew, I was awakened by Pierre patting me on the back and singing to me, as I had done to him so many times before. I realized that I must have been crying in my sleep as I noticed that my face was wet with tears. Pierre's presence began to bring life back to me, watering the part of my heart that had died when Louis died.

Kathleen Semmerling
College of Nursing, '87

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Biochemical Minutia

He did have long fingers. Asila had told him this be- fore, and he had noted it with polite enthusiasm, but had looked down to see nothing more than a hand.

His hand, usually busy with pen or paper, or pages, or paperclips, quiet and still, profering itself for use as a paperweight. The book was new, and the spine was stiff, and Danny's usually busy hand had contented itself with being a creature of function rather than of form as was its usual wont. Ryerson's Biochemistry

The digits were long and slender, to others even graceful; the body recognized them as inexact, fumbling, cramping approximations of the perfect manipulative organ. These emanated from the base of hard sinewy ellipses, known appropriately as knuckles. Danny's further attachment to these five rake tines consisted of a veiny, squarish, flattish chunk forming the terrain the knuckles had rooted themselves in, and a hairy narrow wrist leading to an arm covered with the sleeve of a yellow broadcloth shirt. Tiny triangular scales of skin reflected even tinier specks of perspiration from the back of his hand.

Hair was absent from the flat expanse of smooth regular triangles covering the back of his hand. The hand scarred easily in this location, showing keloid wormlike scars, and various puncture and poke marks. Hair follicles seems lmited to two large patches along the periphery of the flattish chunk, well to the sides of the veiny region, below the thumb and smallest digit. The digits, too, were hairy, showing scarred sparse tufts on the segment of each digit closest the scaly knuckle.

His hand surged and pulsed, but with nothing as sensible as warm liquid; no, with electricity. An invisible powerful aura surrounded his hand, was its source of heat. His hand was shunning energy channeled to it from the body. The hand was now only unsensing weight, warm clay.

The mass of his moving sensing body felt estranged from this hand. His body welled with, brimmed with, a sensible passionate energy, an energy capable of moving rocks and hurling spears. His body wished to shake from itself this hand, this clay thing stuck to its wrist.

The hand could not be moved. It was no longer receiving messages from the body, and seemed to be coaxing the wrist to become its compatriot.

The body was no longer aware of the functioning of its other parts; the harmony of their sounds made them silent. The stillness, the clay death was slowly coursing up the arm. His biceps twitched; the start and end of a wild movement to shake loose the hand, and forcefully, violently reinstate the dictatorial powers of the body; the body must be one.

Insurrection. The hand would not move. The forearm, too, had slipped away — mutated into a curious latex; more of the clay than of the body. The biceps no longer twitched.

He could see his hand and arm, but he saw them as the table, as the book, as the laughable limb of a mannequin propped upon his book. The eyes assessed the world accordingly, without regard or consideration for the information once pertinent to the survival of the hand. The hand was no longer of the body, of the body's realm, not the body's liability.

Sweat from the palm of his hand was beginning to curl the fresh pages of Ryerson.
He had to go. A touch painfully brought the limb back into communication with the body. Alisa would be waiting.

Gene Quirini
College of Medicine, '89

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To the Spirit of Pinel

The French physician, Phillipe Pinel (1745-1826), the Father of Psychiatry, revolutionized our understanding of mental disease and elaborated a therapeutic approach based upon observation and experimentation. He unchained the insane women in the Salpetriere, a large Parisian hospital, in 1795 and wrote" .... I abandoned the dogmatic tone of the physician; frequent visits, sometimes lasting several hours a day, helped me to familiarize myself with the deviations, shouting, and madness of the most violent maniacs..... I take careful notes on the facts observed."

Insanity defined; the balm of thoughful
Words used to press upon brains hollow
With frightening proportions of sublimity.
In human kindness to those whose caprices and whims
Endanger only the imagination of caretakers—
Mental disease does not kill—
The Revolution gave death, surrendered Pinel.
As the canon roared, the instruments of intellect
In collusion with a gentle heart
Perversed the hallowed ground of practice, of cure
Drove athwart the common sense of the time,
opened afresh the similarity of the familiar resonant chords,
Unfettered the insane women of the Salpetriere.
Deprendas animi tormenta latentis in aegro corporel
deprendas et guadia;
sumit utrumque inde habitum facies.^*

Frank Papatheofanis
Graduate College
Biological Chemistry

^*"You can detect the mental torments concealed within a sick body, and you can also detect joy: the face reflects both states."   —Juvenal, Satires, IX, 18.

---

A Modern Day Zombie

(Inspired by the research of Dr. L. Douyon and E.W. Davis— article appearing in Time, Oct. 17, 1983, p. 60)

Tight white curls cut an even band
leaving a rich brown half sphere to shine in the Haitian sun
Hat in his hand, wearing sweat splotched cotton,
dust climbed the white cuffs as he slowly sonambulated
toward his home.
He was a zombie returned
from seven years of slave work:
picking cotton, eating poisoned sweet potatoes
and hallucinogenic zombie cucumbers,
brought to him by his priest masters
every day for his only meal.


A dull knock on the beaten door opened it.
A plump woman, his sister, stared then screamed.
She saw the coffin nail scar on his upper lip
put there the day they made him a zombie.
She had watched
as beaten Clairvious lay unconscious
only to have been fed secret voodoo potions
of toad and puffer fish.
She had watched then
as his breathing stopped
and his heart thumped a final beat.
She had taken him to a hospital bed
to be declared dead,
to be buried alive, as a zombie man.,


Last night the priests forgot to feed him—
past consciousness pricking through a half stupor,


he cut the ropes
that tied his worn hands to bedposts.
Somewhat remembering,
he began walking, and as he did
old memories returned: a wife and two children,
four brothers and a sister,
a land sale?


Clairvius walked, guided by a road and a clear moon sky
till he reached familiar spots.
it was early afternoon when he
passed the village cemetary...
In a quiet drugged daze he knew
he was a zombie,
dead once, now come alive
to haunt their first lives,
and ask why
for land and a little money
had they made him
a zombie.

Dipali V. Apte
Rush Medical College, '88

---

After a Long Stay in Gross Anatomy Lab

We will emerge from Hades
As hungry as Demetrius' daughter
With a few seeds
(Abductor pollicis longus,
Common peroneal, biceps brachii ...),
Names
For which we will pay in the cold seasons,
Death assembled, anointed,
And wrapped carefully in a sheet.


Still childhood whispers its lesson in my ear,
A walking stick climbs over a rose,
My mother chirps like a bird,
And I play my violin in the cellar,
And my lips move in silent recitation
Of some compelling truths
That I did not choose.

"Jenny Diver"
College of Medicine, '89

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This second edition of Body Electric marks another attempt to keep a literary voice heard at UIC. Medicine is, at best, a collaboration; and so too is its expression. Body Electric represents the creative voice of medical students, graduate students health related workers, and others interested in its broadest definition.

This publication would not be possible without the continued efforts and guidance of Suzanne Poirier, Ph.D. Special thanks also go to Hyman Muslin, M.D., for final judging of awards, Bernice Coleman for typing a nd clerical work; Bill Mayer for his illustrations; and The Humanistic Studies Program a nd the Interprofessional Education Committee for providing the funds that make Body Electric a reality.

Bonnie Salomon

Editor:	BONNIE SALOMON College of Medicine '87
Advisor:	SUZANNE POIRIER, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of Literature and Health Care
Design:	BILL MAYER Office of Publications Services