… of a state of the art brain surgery recovery ICU room – one of her relatives is there. That’s why she took the train up to Boston — to drive each morning through dreary streets to one of the world’s great medical centers and sit quietly while someone she loves tries to pull herself together after a surgeon removed a benign tumor. (The surgeon’s name – Ekkehard – means brave sword…) The room seems to totter under the weight of its technology, much of which, in the form of tubes and drains and cuffs, covers the patient’s body.
Intensivists is the name for the doctors who treat ICU patients, and UD likes this word, thinks it should title a poem about something. Those who deal in the intensities. Specialists in over the top events.
The drama is conducted quietly; technology also means the end of the old hospital of pings and pages – the occasional “code” announcement sounds, but the hallways are subdued, courteous, featuring many lobbies furnished with deep couches and soft lights.
UD, a fictivist, has long said of herself I can handle anything except reality. Poems, novels – these sidlings up to reality have been her vocation.
Yet it is also true that Mama Reality seems unable to leave her unmolested. UD is doing her best with it.
February 24th, 2016 at 12:53PM
I wish your relative a speedy recovery.
February 24th, 2016 at 1:42PM
Your kindness is commendable. Bless you, UD.
February 24th, 2016 at 3:12PM
Many thanks, adam and AYY.
February 24th, 2016 at 7:42PM
always strikes me the contrast between our sanitized engineer ordered high-tech medical facilities and the raw flailing messy emotions that we often find there, good to make some space for the alltoohuman as we can under such circumstances, peace to all involved UD.
you might find some value in the works of my late and still dear friend Jessie Gruman.
http://www.cfah.org/jessie-gruman/
February 24th, 2016 at 10:14PM
Best wishes to you and yours
February 25th, 2016 at 7:22AM
Thank you, Pete and dmf.