Final Blog.......

What I will take from English 235 Literature and Medicine is that I appreciated literature more now than before. Before I have taken this course I was not very knowledgeable of Literature in Medicine. After reading the memoir novels, poems, and short stories I have gain more knowledge in understanding of Illness, disability, dying, and practice of medicine. Literature has made me realize that doctors usually think they are correct but we should get more opinions not just one. 

"The doctors called it a hidden occlusion and said it was a

 one-in-a-million circumstances. Maybe if it could have been

 detected somehow and surgery undertaken immediately, 

they could have saved him."

For example, In a Small Good Thing, has surprises me that the doctor based his diagnose on tests only and had misdiagnosed the patient. If he would of caught his mistake earlier then, the child might have lived. However, these are daily life scenarios that occur in our Hospitals. This is why future doctors should take a course in literature so they can become more compassionate toward their patients.

            In addition, when a doctor is diagnosing a patient it’s sometimes hard to understand the patient because of their medical terminology language; the patient tends to not ask questions because they feel ashamed or embarrassed. So what I will do differently in my future visits to the doctor is if I do not understand something, I will ask for the doctor to explain it to me more thoroughly. Also, I have realized doctors are cold and not compassionate toward their patients, I have observed that throughout the different stories we have read. Sometimes, it would be nice if a doctor would be more caring so the patient will feel comfortable with their doctor.

Also, I have learned that suffering and pain is different for every individual. Someone who is trying to understand the individual will never be able to relate to the pain or suffering of what the individual is going through. Even if you write or talk about the pain or suffering you are going through with full details of how you feel. The person will never be able to feel or comprehend how the individual is in pain or is suffering because only that individual who is going through is living through it and no one else.

A one significant thing that I have learned and I will always take with me is about the concept of a good death. After watching the movie Wit 

"Do what you will,

but the paper is due when it is due.
I don't know...
I feel so much..

I look back and I see these scene




What is the word?                

 s and I..."

and reading The Death of Ivan Ilych, 
"'Maybe I did not live as I ought to have done,' it suddenly occurred to him. 'But how could that be, when I did everything properly?' he replied, and immediately dismissed from his mind this, the sole solution of all the riddles of life and death, as something quite impossible.?"

has made me realize how a person must have an illness in order to look back in their life if they have been living a good life. And it was sad that Vivian and Ivan did not live their life to the fulfillment because the only part they were successful was in their careers. However, it was too late for them to change their way of life but not to late to accept that they were not living life the correct way. So it had made me realize and question if I was living my life to the humane fulfillment and not only focusing on my career because I do not wish to live my life as Vivian or Ivan did. When I’m in my dying point, I will like to look back in my life and see what I have accomplish with my flaws but, be satisfy how my life turned out to be ,and not regret I wish I was more humane. The concept on a good death has influence me to enjoy what life has to offering you.

Finally, the course has changes my point of view on the roles of a doctor, a patient, and a care giver. Literature in medicine helps us understand the roles in medicine and how it has change over time. After, analyzing and interpreting the readings from the class, I have gain interests to continue to read similar texts, and continue to explore the different concepts in the  literature in medicine that we were not able to explore in class.  Also, this course has made me to be more humane and compassionate.  I was able to understand the meaning of illness and how can an illness take over the individual. Then through metaphors, poems, stories, and autobiography we will give you a sense of the individual pain or suffering.Thankful, how the practice of medicine is changing over the years and hopefully one day we will  have more successful treatment for the deadly illness. 

Wit: .......John Donne's Sonnet

“Death

Be not proud

Though some have called thee

mighty and dreadful

For thou art not so

For those whom thou think'st,

thou dost overthrow

Die not, poor death

Nor yet canst thou kill me

Thou art slave to Fate

Chance, kings, and desperate men

And dost with poison,

war and sickness dwell

And poppy or charms

can make us sleep as well

And better than thy stroke

Why swell'st thou then?

One short sleep past

We wake eternally

And death shall be no more,

Comma.

Death thou shalt die"

Wit

 

“Miss Bearing, you have advanced metastatic ovarian cancer.”

“I believe I was being thoroughly diagnosed.”

“The first week of each cycle you'll be hospitalized for chemotherapy” 

The next week you may feel a little tired.”

“The next two will be fine, relatively. Eight months like that.”

“This treatment is the strongest thing we have to offer you.”

“The important thing is for you to take the full dose of chemotherapy.”

“There may be times when you wish for a lesser dose, due to the side effects.”

“But we've got to go full force.”

“I've been asked, "How are you feeling?"

“while throwing up into a plastic basin.”

“I have been asked...”

“As I was emerging from a four-hour operation...with a tube in every orifice:”

"How are you feeling today?"

"Significant contribution to knowledge."

"Eight cycles of chemotherapy."

“Give me the full dose.”

“The full dose every time.”

“The attention was flattering...”

“for the first five minutes.”

 

 

 

 

Vivian had realized what was the actually meaning of life, that to be intelligent wasn’t all. It took her cancer’s treatment for her realize that. I believe if Vivian would have survived the cancer, she would become a more humane person. She would have lived the rest of her life differently. Unlike, Lucy Grealy, she was a survivor cancer but her life had gone downhill. She became addict to drugs and she never found her true identity. Lucy’s biggest struggle was trying to figure who she was in life and Vivian’s biggest struggle was trying to seek for the attention that she didn’t gave. Lucy’s cancer damages her life because she wasn’t able to be a normal human because she was always being the hospital. Actually was never able to live a normal life since, many people would be rude to her because of the deformation of her face. Vivian’s cancer made her realize that there is more about life that just being the smartest person you can be. Unfortunately, for Vivian she wasn’t able to live life in a different perspective as she wish. However, Lucy had the opportunity to change her life, but she didn’t take advantage of it.

Autobiography of a Face Part One……….Lucy Grealy

 

“Their Approval or disapproval defined everything for me, and I believed with every cell in my body that approval wasn't written into my particular script.”

“I was responsible for my mother’s unhappy life.”

“Fascinated by how much pain I was in and by how strangely peaceful I felt.”

“She told me how brave I was and how lucky we all were that this had happened to me and not Sarah, my twin sister.”

“I loved any chances to drive through the filthy, bewildering streets of New York, see so many different types of people, marvel that so many noises could exist all at once.”

“All I had to do was perform heroically and I could personally save my entire family.”

“I’d consciously packed no stuffed animal to bring to the hospital. I was of paramount importance that I appear adult, strong, unafraid.”

“Not one person ever said the word cancer to me, at least not in a way that registered as pertaining to me.”

“Sooner or later we all have to learn the words with which to name our own private losses, but then we just stood there in a front of the nurses’ desk, speechless.”

 

Lucy family was not the type of supportive or emotional family. Lucy’s family related to David Small’s family. The both families were dysfunctional in way and demonstrated that they had to be strong and should not show any sign of crying because it was sign of weakness. Both families had issues on how they will get money to pay for their child’s treatment. Also, Lucy and David had trouble through their childhood of finding their own identity but eventually David found his pathway through life.

 

Cathedral

“I wasn't enthusiastic about his visit.”

“My idea of blindness came from the movies.”

“A blind man in my house was not something I looked forward to.”

“She told him everything.”

“”If you love me”, she said, you can do this for me. “If you don’t love me, okay”.

“But if you had a friend, any friend, and the friend came to visit. I’d make him feel comfortable.”

“I don’t have any blind friends.”

“I felt sorry for the blind man for a little bit.”

“I’m imagining now her last thought maybe this: that he never even knew what she looked like.”

“”We ate everything there was to eat on the table. We ate like there was no tomorrow.”

“The blind man had right away located his foods, he knew just where everything was on his plate. I watched with admiration as he used his knife and fork on the meat.”

“I’ll try some with you.”

“I rolled us two fat numbers. I lit one and passed it.”

“Hold it as long as you can.”

“In could tell he didn't know the first thing.”

“It’s fine with me. Whatever you want to watch is okay.”

“I’m always learning something. Learning never ends. It won’t hurt me to learn something tonight. I got ears.”

“But maybe you could describe one to me?”

“I wish you’d do it. I’d like that. If you want to know, I really don’t have a good idea.”

“I hope you don’t mind me asking you. Can I ask you something? Let me ask you a simple question, yes or no, I’m just curious and there’s no offense.”

“But let me ask if you are in any way religious? You don’t mind me asking?”

“Close your eyes now”

“So we kept on with t. his fingers rode my finger as my hand went over the paper. It was like nothing else in my life up to now.”

“My eyes were still closed. I was in my house. I knew that. But I didn't feel like I was inside anything.”

“It’s really something”

He……..By Katherine Anne Porter

“God knows what would become of us if we lived north”

“They would say: keeping them decently clean was hard. It looks like our luck won’t never let up on us”

“No, not if it comes to it that we have to live in a wagon and pick cotton around the country. Nobody ‘s going to get a chance to look down on us”

“You know yourself it’s more natural for a mother to be that way. People don’t expect so much of father, some way.”

“I wouldn't have anything happen to Him for all the world, but it just looks like I can’t keep Him out of mischief. He’s so strong and active, he’s always into everything; he was like that since he could walk.”

“I’ll remember it to my dying day. The innocent walk with God-that’s why He don’t get hurt.”

“Repeated these words, she always felt a warm pool spread in her breast, and the tears would fill her eyes”

“Don’t never let anybody hear you say such things. They’d think you favored the other children over Him.”

"He’s my child, and I’m not going to have people say anything. I get sick of people coming around saying things all the time.”

“My Lord, look at you now after all my trying!”

“Lord, don’t let anything happen to Him. Lord, you know people will say we oughtn't to have sent Him. You know they’ll say we didn't take care of him"

"We’re losing our hold”

“Why can’t we do like other people and watch for our best chances? They’ll be calling us poor white trash next.”

“Then doctor has told you and told you time and again He can’t ever get better, and you might as well stop talking.”

“Doctors don’t know everything.”

“Oh, honey, you don’t feel so bad, do you? You don’t feel so bad, do you?”

“She had loved hi, as much as she possibly could, there were Adna~ and Emly who had to be thought of too, there was nothing she could do to make up to him for his life. Oh, what a mortal pity He was ever born.”

“They came in sight of the hospital, with neighbor driving very fast, not daring to look behind him. “

Interpreter of Maladies ..........By Jhumpa Lahiri

“Mr. Kapasi pulled over to the side of the road as Mr. Das took a picture of a barefoot man, his head wrapped in a dirty turban, seated on top of a loft of grain sacks pulled by a pair of bullocks.”

“But so romantic”

“He began to check his reflection in the rear view mirror as he drove , fairly grateful that he had chosen the grey suit that morning.”

“When do you return to America”

Mr. Kapasi  fell in love with Mrs.. Das because he thought she had the same feelings. When she had said, “But so romantic” about his job because his wife thought his job was not that important. However, both couples were not that happy with each other and showed no love for each other. Mr. Kapasi felt that there would be a future with Mrs. Das. So, he extended his tour to spend more time with her. Then, Mrs. Das confessed to Mr. Kapasi that Bobby is not Raj’s son . This changed Mr. Kapasi's feeling about Mrs.. Das. He  let the paper with his address written on it fly away. I think he felt that it was better to let the paper disappear.