Category: books, literature, arts

Exploring health in fiction

Most fiction is based on real life, which is full of twists and turns related to our health and well being. Our state of health, good or bad, directs much of what we do, and can change suddenly and unexpectedly, and turn our lives upside down. Consider how many TV dramas are based in hospitals, involving health care workers, and sick or injured people.

I hadn’t planned on writing book reviews when I started this blog. I love to read so  I recommended health and medical books that sounded interesting.

After reading one myself,  I wanted my readers to know abut it, so I wrote my first book review Working Stiff: Two Years, 262 Bodies, and The Making of a Medical Examiner- 

After that, I continued reviewing   non-fiction medical books, including  memoirs  and biographies,  medical history, health advice, books on dying, vaccination, nutrition, and medical care. I didn’t expect to review fiction, but I have.

“based on a true story”

That shouldn’t have seemed strange, since most fiction is based on real life, which is full of twists and turns related to our health and well being. Our state of health, good or bad, directs much of what we do, and can change suddenly and unexpectedly, and turn our lives upside down. Consider how many TV dramas are based in hospitals, involving health care workers, and sick or injured people.

A true story written by a physician, Twelve Patients: Life and Death at Bellevue Hospital was the inspiration for the NBC drama New Amsterdam.

 

EXPLORING HEALTH IN FICTION -www.watercresswords.com

 

 

My Sister’s Keeper

by Jodi Picoult

I didn’t review this book but I used an excerpt  in a post about hair loss.

The book tackles several cutting edge health technologies that can create touchy ethical issues that I haven’t dealt with here, but if I do, I’ll revisit this book.

 My Sister’s Keeper  is a novel that touches on  several medical themes including cancer, genetic engineering, organ donation, and medical autonomy. The book was also a movie which I haven’t seen yet.

my sister's keeper- DVD

The story is about Kate, an adolescent who as a toddler developed a rare form of leukemia, and has spent the majority of her life either in the hospital getting treatment or recovering from them. After yet another chemotherapy regimen, she has lost her hair.

spoiler alert- skip this section if you don’t want to know something that happens in the book

One day her mother, Sara, offers to take Kate and her younger sister Anna to the mall for a day out. Kate refuses.

“Don’t say it. Don’t tell me that nobody’s going to stare at me, because they will. Don’t tell me it doesn’t matter because it does. And don’t tell me I look fine because that’s a lie.” Her eyes, lash-bare, fill with tears. “I’m a freak, Mom. Look at me.”

Sara looks at her and says, “Well, we can fix this.”

“She walks out of the room followed by Kate and Anna. She finds a pair of ancient electric grooming clippers, plugs them in, and cuts a swath right down the middle of her own scalp.

“Mom”, Kate gasps.

With another swipe of the razor, Kate starts to smile. She points out a spot Sara missed. Anna crawls onto Sara’s lap. “Me next,” she begs.”

As Sara later remembers:

“An hour later, we walk through the mall holding hands, a trio of bald girls. We stay for hours. Everywhere we go, heads turn and voices whisper. We are beautiful, times three.”

 

 

 

Say Goodbye for Now 

by Catherine Ryan Hyde

I was drawn to this book because the main character is a woman physician. I started it just for pleasure, but once drawn into the story, I knew I wanted to review it for the blog.

In 1959, Dr. Lucille Armstrong, or Dr. Lucy as she is called, practices medicine of sorts in a small Texas town. Although she is a “doctor of human beings”, she spends most of her time taking care of stray and injured animals.

To support them and herself, she occasionally treats people; “ it’s not a hobby, I do it for the money.” But because “people there didn’t take well to a woman doctor”, her patients are not always the town’s model citizens.

Dr. Lucy lives alone except for the menagerie of injured animals she has doctored back to life. She likes her life the way it is, until she opens her home to three  unexpected and unlikely guests.

Say Goodbye for Now- a book review

 

 

 

 

Labor Day

by Joyce Maynard

Leaving for a trip, I bought a book to read on the airplane. After reading a few pages, I realized it was also a movie I had seen. So my subsequent review was a book/movie review. The medical themes in this book/movie were subtle, but no less real.

Henry, who narrates the story, lives with his divorced mom in a small town. At 13, Henry seems more mature than he should need to be, while his mother Adele seems childish and naive for a grown woman. As the story unfolds, you begin to wonder  if Adele’s eccentric behavior is due to something more than immaturity.

Adele and Henry are in their small town store buying clothes for school when a man they don’t know approaches them asking for help. Frank seems nice enough and asking for help might not be a problem except for the fact that is is bleeding, and evasive about why.

He asks Adele to take him to her house and either due to fear or poor judgement, she says yes. Both she and Henry seem to realize that something dramatic is about to change in their lives, but what it is, they can only guess at this point.

Labor Day, a book more interesting than the holiday

You can probably borrow these books from your local library- I do. But if you do decide to buy books, please consider the affiliate links here. Purchases through them help support this blog and help share the HEART of health.


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exploring the HEART of health by reading fiction

Medical stethoscope and heart on a textured background

Dr Aletha

poppies- from Flanders fields to Kansas City

In the battlefields of Belgium during World War I, poppies grew wild amid the ravages of war. The overturned soils of battle covered  the poppy seeds to,  allowing them to grow and forever serve as a reminder of the bloodshed of war.

Out of this conflict came a poem, from which also came the association with poppies .

When I posted this in a physician bloggers group, I learned about the World War I Museum and Memorial in Kansas City from Dr. Kristen Kasper Stuppy. I haven’t visited it yet, but I was pleased to learn from their website that they have an exhibit featuring poppies.

“though poppies grow in Flanders fields”

In the United States,  the last Monday in May is Memorial Day, but it’s now become a  “holiday” weekend. The Friday of Memorial Day weekend is now observed as  National Poppy Day. 

In the early 1920s the American Legion Auxiliary adopted the poppy as the American Legion Family’s memorial flower. Still today it symbolizes the service and sacrifice of veterans of World War I and other military operations.

ALA members distribute millions of paper poppies annually across the country in exchange for donations that go directly to assist disabled and hospitalized veterans in our communities.

armed forces emblems over a field of poppies

Why poppies?

I love the story of the poppies because it has a medical connection.

In the battlefields of Belgium during World War I, poppies grew wild amid the ravages of war. The overturned soils of battle covered  the poppy seeds to,  allowing them to grow and forever serve as a reminder of the bloodshed of war.

Out of this conflict came a poem, from which also came the association with poppies .

 

The now famous poem, In Flanders Fields, was written by a Canadian physician, Lt. Col. John McCrae.

Originally from Canada, Dr.McCrae was an English and math teacher, as well as a poet, before he attended medical school. He moved to England and was practicing there when World War I broke out, and he was called to serve as a brigade-surgeon.

I suspect that as a physician, he was deeply  pained by  treating the wounded, and the loss of those he could not save.

“In April 1915, McCrae was stationed in the trenches near Ypres, Belgium, in an area known as Flanders, during the bloody Second Battle of Ypres.

In the midst of the tragic warfare, McCrae’s friend, twenty-two-year-old Lieutenant Alexis Helmer, was killed by artillery fire and buried in a makeshift grave.

The following day, McCrae, after seeing the field of makeshift graves blooming with wild poppies, wrote his famous poem “In Flanders Field,” which would be the second to last poem he would ever write.”

(from John McCrae at poets.org)

In Flanders Fields

Dr. John McCrae, 1872 – 1918

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row, 
That mark our place, and in the sky, 
The larks, still bravely singing, fly, 
Scarce heard amid the guns below. 

We are the dead; short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, 
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields. 

Take up our quarrel with the foe! 
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high! 
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

This poem is in the public domain.

 

The poppy is the official state flower of California.  Read 5 more

interesting facts about poppies. 

Welcome Home Heroes- military sign
Thanks to the support of generous donors like you, The American Legion can continue to provide much-needed assistance to our veterans, service members and their families.

You can  help deserving veterans by donating  at this link,

The American Legion 

just one of the ways this blog works to share the HEART of health

Dr. Aletha