morbidity                                                                                                          

We are a strange, sad species. Heavied by the burden of our bodies, our appetites, our impulses, our thirsts. We sit on either side of the sharp line, each of us equally mortal, all of us driven by our own quiet fires. 

In the conference room on the sixth floor of the east wing at the top level, down the glass halls and past the big windows, we gather in disorderly array. Along the wall there are gleaming sliver crafts of coffee, ceramic pitchers of cream, flakey pastries, sweet muffins, powdered donuts, bowls of sugar. Crowded around the bounty we fill ourselves with heavy cream and light conversation until we begin to spill over a little on the edges, insatiable.

Sitting in on the weekly Cardiology mortality report, listening to the case, viewing the real time images, clutching at my own hard beating heart, I look around through the darkness at those around me. We all sit in unison, nod our heads, dissent or agree, interjecting the supporting evidence of the obvious risk factors (he was a smoker, his cholesterol was 318, he never achieved adequate blood pressure control, his diabetes was untreated for years), dividing our attention between the screen and our bellies, casually discussing the death of a stranger while earnestly shaping our own. 

mortality

I am sent to the clinic to admit my patient, a man in his late fifties, referred to us by his doctor three hours away, he has been having chest pain for days. His EKG shows some startling changes, his cardiac enzymes confirm a small attack and his medical history betrays a relatively short life of hard living. We sit in the cheery clinic room, me on the stool, he and his wife on chairs in front of me. I take them in as a contiguous unit, two humans who have shared thirty years with each other. He is a little ashen, surprisingly thin. She sits next to him, bearing the betrayal of her expansive body, weighted down by an anarchy of cells. We discuss the obvious: the smoking, the drinking, the cholesterol, the fats. He tells me he won't do needles, insulin is out. He tells me we keep giving him his blood pressure medication but he doesn't take it, he feels fine. Even now, he tells me, I feel fine. I don't have chest pain any longer, I want to go home. 

She sits beside him, wheezing ever so slightly, looking up at the ceiling, at the posters behind me, anywhere, everywhere else but me. I want to turn my attention to her, now that he is safely within the parameters of our ability, on his way to broader arteries, his life extended by as little much as we can give him. I want to reach out and touch her arm, contact her, connect. Shifting herself on the small plastic chair in front of me I can taste her discomfort, feel her anxiety, her presumption that I am here to judge, scold, chastise, scoff. 

There is no way that I know of yet to sometimes be good to both the body and the mind. There is no way that I know of yet to save us from our own appetites, the fire to feed. There is no way that I know of yet to explain fully, in human form, the betray that crosses from body to mind. There is no way that I know of yet to understand what it is to loose a battle brought onto you by your own cells and tissues, by your own cross-wired mind.