- Email: [email protected]
Plastic Surgery
CHEST Editor’s Note: Aditya Shankar is a bilingual writer and short filmmaker. He writes in English and Malayalam and works as the Creative Director of a game and animation development studio.
Pectoriloquy
Editor’s Note: The poet wrote this poem “during and after my father’s elective surgery to repair an aneurysm. He has never been the same since, and this was the first of what I’m sure will be many attempts to explore that truth. I…fund my writing habit by running a children’s art studio.”
Traveling long to inform a friend’s death Plastic Surgery
The task on hand is easy Search for a lane where the air is rusty and bleeding by the long absence of a beloved son Spot the house with walls looking like long lost childhood – New grown mosses on them fighting against Skewed alphabets, inverted numerals and memories of a young child Look for a father waiting with that favorite dish, compensating the extra spice with a face full of smile and moustache Hear the silence of the bird’s long lost song, toys tied up in trees, and the marbles that reappear from the soil The task on hand is easy Never speak a word to inform what you intend to – Walk back like any another stranger, knocking on the wrong door in the scorching heat of summer. Aditya Shankar, B.Tech Thrissur, India
Editor’s note for authors of submissions to Pectoriloquy: Poems should not exceed 350 words, should not have been previously published, and should be related to concerns of physicians and medicine. First submissions to the Pectoriloquy Section should be submitted via e-mail to [email protected]. Authors of accepted poems will be asked to submit the final version to CHEST Manuscript Central. —Michael Zack, MD, FCCP © 2010 American College of Chest Physicians. Reproduction of this article is prohibited without written permission from the American College of Chest Physicians (http://www.chestpubs.orgⲐ siteⲐmiscⲐreprints.xhtml). DOI: 10.1378/chest.09-2862 www.chestpubs.org
Everybody does it but most won’t admit it. And so I chose it too. My upper arms flapped like white sheets hanging on the line on laundry day after weight loss. So I detoured to Buenos Aires where I was sliced for twenty-five hundred bucks. What I couldn’t afford back home. At dawn, at the best hospital, I doused myself with a gallon of antiseptic. Donned a gown straight out of a Dr. Kildare film from the thirties—long sleeves, banded wrists. Then the surgeon undressed me, stood me in a hall and he marked my arms with lines and whorls, where he planned to cut. Stroked my arm while the anesthesiologist jabbed a needle into my hand. Post-surgery, naked, no gowns available so I quivered under my blanket. Curious, I stayed awake all night in my teak-lined room with white leather sofas. The same shot used each time, mine marked with a bit of tape. Early the next morning, I was booted out and four days later on a plane home, stitches still elbow to armpit. When my arms turned green, I raced to the ER where they saved me from infection. Ten days in a hospital bed, unmoving, I developed a bed sore. IV blown four times. The surgeon yelled Book an OR when he couldn’t see the stitches. Cut open again. He marveled at the beauty of his work, just thin red lines for scars. They don’t bother me one whit. Was it worth it? Litany of pre-surgical tests, primitive conditions, the near-loss of both my arms? Elective surgery in a country where I didn’t speak the language? But now I go sleeveless in the coldest of weather, don’t care that my upper arms have grown a trifle flabby. Now I fit into shirts and dresses I always longed for. Never mind the horrific swelling, lack of mental acuity from pain meds that made one thigh talk to the other as I listened in. I got what I wanted. What we all desire but never admit— changes to the body we’ve been given, desire for perfection never very far away. Virginia Chase Sutton, MA, MFA Tempe, AZ © 2010 American College of Chest Physicians. Reproduction of this article is prohibited without written permission from the American College of Chest Physicians (http://www.chestpubs.orgⲐ siteⲐmiscⲐreprints.xhtml). DOI: 10.1378/chest.10-0024 CHEST / 138 / 6 / DECEMBER, 2010
Downloaded from chestjournal.chestpubs.org by Kimberly Henricks on December 7, 2010 © 2010 American College of Chest Physicians
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Pectoriloquy
Editor’s Note: The poet wrote this poem “during and after my father’s elective surgery to repair an aneurysm. He has never been the same since, and this was the first of what I’m sure will be many attempts to explore that truth. I…fund my writing habit by running a children’s art studio.”
Traveling long to inform a friend’s death Plastic Surgery
The task on hand is easy Search for a lane where the air is rusty and bleeding by the long absence of a beloved son Spot the house with walls looking like long lost childhood – New grown mosses on them fighting against Skewed alphabets, inverted numerals and memories of a young child Look for a father waiting with that favorite dish, compensating the extra spice with a face full of smile and moustache Hear the silence of the bird’s long lost song, toys tied up in trees, and the marbles that reappear from the soil The task on hand is easy Never speak a word to inform what you intend to – Walk back like any another stranger, knocking on the wrong door in the scorching heat of summer. Aditya Shankar, B.Tech Thrissur, India
Editor’s note for authors of submissions to Pectoriloquy: Poems should not exceed 350 words, should not have been previously published, and should be related to concerns of physicians and medicine. First submissions to the Pectoriloquy Section should be submitted via e-mail to [email protected]. Authors of accepted poems will be asked to submit the final version to CHEST Manuscript Central. —Michael Zack, MD, FCCP © 2010 American College of Chest Physicians. Reproduction of this article is prohibited without written permission from the American College of Chest Physicians (http://www.chestpubs.orgⲐ siteⲐmiscⲐreprints.xhtml). DOI: 10.1378/chest.09-2862 www.chestpubs.org
Everybody does it but most won’t admit it. And so I chose it too. My upper arms flapped like white sheets hanging on the line on laundry day after weight loss. So I detoured to Buenos Aires where I was sliced for twenty-five hundred bucks. What I couldn’t afford back home. At dawn, at the best hospital, I doused myself with a gallon of antiseptic. Donned a gown straight out of a Dr. Kildare film from the thirties—long sleeves, banded wrists. Then the surgeon undressed me, stood me in a hall and he marked my arms with lines and whorls, where he planned to cut. Stroked my arm while the anesthesiologist jabbed a needle into my hand. Post-surgery, naked, no gowns available so I quivered under my blanket. Curious, I stayed awake all night in my teak-lined room with white leather sofas. The same shot used each time, mine marked with a bit of tape. Early the next morning, I was booted out and four days later on a plane home, stitches still elbow to armpit. When my arms turned green, I raced to the ER where they saved me from infection. Ten days in a hospital bed, unmoving, I developed a bed sore. IV blown four times. The surgeon yelled Book an OR when he couldn’t see the stitches. Cut open again. He marveled at the beauty of his work, just thin red lines for scars. They don’t bother me one whit. Was it worth it? Litany of pre-surgical tests, primitive conditions, the near-loss of both my arms? Elective surgery in a country where I didn’t speak the language? But now I go sleeveless in the coldest of weather, don’t care that my upper arms have grown a trifle flabby. Now I fit into shirts and dresses I always longed for. Never mind the horrific swelling, lack of mental acuity from pain meds that made one thigh talk to the other as I listened in. I got what I wanted. What we all desire but never admit— changes to the body we’ve been given, desire for perfection never very far away. Virginia Chase Sutton, MA, MFA Tempe, AZ © 2010 American College of Chest Physicians. Reproduction of this article is prohibited without written permission from the American College of Chest Physicians (http://www.chestpubs.orgⲐ siteⲐmiscⲐreprints.xhtml). DOI: 10.1378/chest.10-0024 CHEST / 138 / 6 / DECEMBER, 2010
Downloaded from chestjournal.chestpubs.org by Kimberly Henricks on December 7, 2010 © 2010 American College of Chest Physicians
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