I am looking out the window at the enclosed yard where the dogs run free.
It is their job to go crazy when someone walks by along the alley.
They are running back and forth along the fence line, crazy, barking, yelling.
Suddenly, Tiger (who is a handsome young brindle boxer), collapses. He simply drops in place, mid run.
I run outside, down the steps to the yard, to his limp body lying on the ground.
Everything else fades away. (ie, the other dog wasn't there anymore?? how could this be???)
And time stands still.
He is not breathing.
He is not breathing.
He is not breathing.
His tongue is turning a bluish, cyantic hue.
What do I do? what do I do??????
I don't really want to give him mouth to mouth -- but I consider it.
What do I DO???
Then, a small voice inside of me says to myself " You are a doctor. What would you do if this were a person?"
And I raise my fist over my head, and bring it down on his chest with as much might and force as I could muster. I THUMP him as hard as I can, right on the chest.
I have nothing to lose by hitting him this hard. He is going to be dead anyway.
And then, as if nothing had happened, he takes a breath. and his color instantly is restored.
And he gets up and walks, and I am so happy he didn't die.
It was an amazing miracle I had just witnessed.
The funny thing is, my life was so messed up at the time, I went on that day, as if nothing had happened. I didn't even tell anyone about it...... until now -- 20+ years later.
I had been so in survival mode then, I saw a miracle, and just kept surviving.
Wednesday, December 28, 2016
Katz Hats
Mr Katz made Hats.
He was an old man, in an old smelling warehouse, with small customer space in front of a large tall desk, spanning the length of the room. Behind that desk, was where Mr Katz made hats.
How do you make a hat?
Did he design the hats?
I loved Mr Katz, maybe because I loved Cats.
He was an old man, in an old smelling warehouse, with small customer space in front of a large tall desk, spanning the length of the room. Behind that desk, was where Mr Katz made hats.
How do you make a hat?
Did he design the hats?
I loved Mr Katz, maybe because I loved Cats.
Thursday, April 30, 2015
Safe Place
It is a safe place. A refuge, similar to a place where a victim of domestic abuse can hide.
Women go there in secret. They disappear to there.
I picture it in a more rural setting, not the heart of the city.
This may or may not be correct.
Women go there in secret. They disappear to there.
I picture it in a more rural setting, not the heart of the city.
This may or may not be correct.
poverty and pregnancy in India
This is an example: Very poor young girls raised on the sidewalk, living with their families (example of what this looks like), raped by the sidewalk owner, resulting in pregnancy, are disowned by their families for being pregnant out of wedlock. Even in this setting pregnancy out of wedlock brings such disgrace on everyone.
They are ostricized, unable to work, banished from their family. Nobody will ever marry them now -- they are the untouchable of the untouchables.
They are left with few options:
suicide
unsafe abortion
http://www.boloji.com/index.cfm?md=Content&sd=Articles&ArticleID=3918
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Dalit-rape-victim-gets-landlord-arrested-in-Himachal-Pradesh/articleshow/17919827.cms
**********************
Even sidewalk dwellers in India have to pay regular fees to someone -- the sidewalk owner, policemen, syndicates.
***************************
They might hide the pregnancy until they can't, waiting until later pregnancy, and then have a third trimester pregnancy abortion. If the child is viable it has a chance to survive. Waiting until late pregnancy has something to do with either Hindu religion or Karma
Is that what I heard? Now I can't remember. How can this be?
Late Pregnancy abortion is not legal in India.
Prematurity is common.
Voluntary premature deliver?
How could this be possible?
The child would likely be abandoned.
Even then she can't return to society if people knew.
************************************
Did I hear or remember this wrong?
I search the internet to try to find validation of such practices. So far I haven't found any.
*****************
But this was probably the mid 1980s I am talking about -- or maybe nothing has changed.
They are ostricized, unable to work, banished from their family. Nobody will ever marry them now -- they are the untouchable of the untouchables.
They are left with few options:
suicide
unsafe abortion
http://www.boloji.com/index.cfm?md=Content&sd=Articles&ArticleID=3918
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Dalit-rape-victim-gets-landlord-arrested-in-Himachal-Pradesh/articleshow/17919827.cms
**********************
Even sidewalk dwellers in India have to pay regular fees to someone -- the sidewalk owner, policemen, syndicates.
***************************
They might hide the pregnancy until they can't, waiting until later pregnancy, and then have a third trimester pregnancy abortion. If the child is viable it has a chance to survive. Waiting until late pregnancy has something to do with either Hindu religion or Karma
Is that what I heard? Now I can't remember. How can this be?
Late Pregnancy abortion is not legal in India.
Prematurity is common.
Voluntary premature deliver?
How could this be possible?
The child would likely be abandoned.
Even then she can't return to society if people knew.
************************************
Did I hear or remember this wrong?
I search the internet to try to find validation of such practices. So far I haven't found any.
*****************
But this was probably the mid 1980s I am talking about -- or maybe nothing has changed.
Wednesday, April 29, 2015
That's not my baby
You arrive to the Indian orphanage, after excruciating months of looking at a stamp sized picture of the son who had already seared his place in your heart, finally coming to receive the baby and take him home. You had memorized every details of his features, including that special little mark on the ear.
But where is the baby? They take you to the basket holding an infant boy.
"That's not my baby", you immediately say.
You know your baby, you have memorized his face, his every characteristic, having studied the stamp sized photo for months.
"Where is my baby?" You move from basket to basket looking for the baby, unable to find him.
Finally, in the back of the room, you find a smaller than expected, limp infant, near death, too weak to cry.
This is him, you know his face, his characteristic ear mark.
The baby you had waited for all of these months is so profoundly ill and not as expected.
"That baby is not going to survive. We'll give you another one", the orphanage staff tries to comfort you.
But you don't want another baby.
You only want YOUR baby.
You know who your baby is, and you are not taking another baby.
You are determined to nurse and comfort the infant you had been anticipating for months.
Your baby.
But where is the baby? They take you to the basket holding an infant boy.
"That's not my baby", you immediately say.
You know your baby, you have memorized his face, his every characteristic, having studied the stamp sized photo for months.
"Where is my baby?" You move from basket to basket looking for the baby, unable to find him.
Finally, in the back of the room, you find a smaller than expected, limp infant, near death, too weak to cry.
This is him, you know his face, his characteristic ear mark.
The baby you had waited for all of these months is so profoundly ill and not as expected.
"That baby is not going to survive. We'll give you another one", the orphanage staff tries to comfort you.
But you don't want another baby.
You only want YOUR baby.
You know who your baby is, and you are not taking another baby.
You are determined to nurse and comfort the infant you had been anticipating for months.
Your baby.
That Sound
"Bring the baby to my mother's house, so he can at least die in a home, rather than in this orphanage", your Indian female physician friend says to you.
*******************************************
"Do you know that sound that dying babies make?" you ask me.
No. I don't know it.
This is a sound you knew from your work in India and from Africa.
You had worked in maternal fetal medicine for years, combating prematurity, promoting prenatal care.
You had seen many hopeless cases before.
*********************************
You sit on the floor in the tiny home of your physician friend's mother. They take the baby to an adjacent closet sized space, where they have an alter. You can hear their utterances, as you sit praying.
You hear that sound come from your infant son, and you are sure he has died.
You sit helplessly on the floor, waiting for them to return.
*************************************
You heard the sound come from the mouth of your own baby, the Indian infant you had been in the process of adopting for months, as you prayed for his life, from the other room. The Hindu women uttered their prayers from their alter nearby.
After a while they returned, baby in their hands, and said "He is going to be OK now".
Miraculously he lived.
You tell me how you would later joke with them about the prayers - asking whose prayers and whose God saved him?
*************************
The Hindu grandmother continues to help to nurse him back to health.
As she does so, she continually tries to reshape to straighten his nose.
**************
He has a beautiful nose today.
*******************************************
"Do you know that sound that dying babies make?" you ask me.
No. I don't know it.
This is a sound you knew from your work in India and from Africa.
You had worked in maternal fetal medicine for years, combating prematurity, promoting prenatal care.
You had seen many hopeless cases before.
*********************************
You sit on the floor in the tiny home of your physician friend's mother. They take the baby to an adjacent closet sized space, where they have an alter. You can hear their utterances, as you sit praying.
You hear that sound come from your infant son, and you are sure he has died.
You sit helplessly on the floor, waiting for them to return.
*************************************
You heard the sound come from the mouth of your own baby, the Indian infant you had been in the process of adopting for months, as you prayed for his life, from the other room. The Hindu women uttered their prayers from their alter nearby.
After a while they returned, baby in their hands, and said "He is going to be OK now".
Miraculously he lived.
You tell me how you would later joke with them about the prayers - asking whose prayers and whose God saved him?
*************************
The Hindu grandmother continues to help to nurse him back to health.
As she does so, she continually tries to reshape to straighten his nose.
**************
He has a beautiful nose today.
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