April 3, 2017
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Looking Damaged
Discarded
Disfigured exterior carefully examined
Deftly finger the anomaly
Determine the likelihood of repair
Details written in a plan
Damages weighed and analyzed
Decide if it is worth the effort
Deformed in body but not in soulThe above is a Pleiades. Pleiades is a type of poem invented in 1999 by Craig Tigerman. The format is that the title is a single word followed by a single 7 line stanza. The first word in each line starts with the same letter as the first letter of the title. There is no specified meter, rhyme, or syllable count. As is my usual style I am going to discuss what prompted this poem.
You see I was scrolling through my feed on Facebook when I went to one of those quiz sites to see what kind of mythical beast I would be. At the end of the quiz there are a ton of additional sites all trying to get you to click and visit them. Being a bit bored, I clicked on one about the miraculous and life saving efforts of several people to rescue a dog that had been trapped in a collapsed sewer drain. I'm a veterinary technician so I am always interested in the animal stories. Well, one click led to another and pretty soon I'm reading about a snake that has tried to swallow a child. On this journey through the backwaters of the internet I start to see these stories about Doctors Without Borders, Americares, Operation Smile, and International Medical Corps. It was so overwhelming. The number of people, especially children, who needed medical attention and the limited resources available was heartbreaking. It made me realize how fortunate I am when I watched the doctors examine the children and have to decide which ones they could help - based on choosing the ones with the best chance of a successful outcome....
Comments (5)
And at the other end of life, it's equally sad to be told that a remedy "would probably not be offered."
A former coworker was fighting with her mother's doctors to get a hip replacement. The older woman was 85 and in such pain from the hip but the doctors didn't want to do anything. She insisted and eventually took her to Mayo clinic. The hip was replaced and her mother lived to be 101. That surgery made her mother's life worth living for another 16 years! I hope my sons will be good advocates for me when I'm older...
Often the elderly need that good advocate -- good for your coworker and yay for her mother!
Having to make such decisions takes a powerfully strong and courageous person. Be it human or animal.
I don't ever want to have to choose one person over another to save... I can't imagine the heavy hearts those doctors and nurses must have at the end of the day.