Tag: heart beat

Running. With Bro.

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I’m sitting in his chair, a padded wheel chair at the side of his bed at the Rehab Center.

He’s sitting up on his bed, but bent over, trying to catch his breath.

Oxygen is flowing from a tank down a tube through his Trach.

My eyes are never far from his heart rate monitor.

It’s a lime green digital read out, being fed stats through a line connected to his index finger.

120.
122.
118.
123

A heart rate equal to a light jog.

Not a 10 min, or 15 min, or 30 min jog.

A 24 x 7 jog.

Running. Running. Running.

He coughs, interrupting the signal. The machine flashes yellow alerts, and fires a piercing alarm to the Nurse’s station.

Then silence. Continue reading “Running. With Bro.” →

Miracle. All of It.

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“The hospital corridors were quiet, the midwife was quiet. She whispered—that’s how I remember it—that I needed to see the doctor and have an ultrasound. She helped me gather my things and sent us even farther down the corridor. I remember lying on the doctor’s examining table in a dark cubicle, only the ultrasound machine emitting light. I remember covering my face with my hands. After a while, the doctor touched my arm. “Look,” he said. My husband took my hand in his. The doctor pointed at the screen and moved his finger carefully around the sonogram, as though showing us a rare map, and then, because we couldn’t quite believe what we were seeing and what he was telling us, he turned up the sound so we could hear the steady beating of the heart…”

~ Linn Ullmann, ”Unquiet: A Novel” (W. W. Norton & Company, January 15, 2019)

Notes:

  • Photo of sonogram: Kim Pham
  • Related Posts: Miracle. All of it.
  • Inspiration: Inspired by Albert Einstein’s quote: “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”

Monday Morning Wake-Up Call

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Turning to the head of his bed, he noticed a single camellia blossom that had fallen to the floor. He was certain he had heard it drop during the night; the sound had resounded in his ears like a rubber ball bounced off the ceiling. Although he thought this might be explained by the silence of the night, just to make sure that all was well with him, he had placed his right hand over his heart. Then, feeling the blood pulsating correctly at the edge of his ribs, he had fallen asleep. For some time, he gazed vacantly at the color of the large blossom, which was nearly as large as a baby’s head. Then, as if he had just thought of it, he put his hand to his heart and once again began to study its beat. It had become a habit with him lately to listen to his heart’s pulsation while lying in bed. As usual, the palpitation was calm and steady. With his hand still on his chest, he tried to imagine the warm, crimson blood flowing leisurely to this beat. This was life, he thought. Now, at this very moment, he held in his grasp the current of life as it flowed by.

~ Natsume Sōseki, “And Then” (1909)

Photo (edited): commorancy with Pink Camellia, Hakone Japanese Gardens

It’s been a long day

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I find my heart beating in a four-way tempo
and dig behind my ribs to figure out what’s wrong.
Just the same–
it’s forgotten how to do things the easy way.

~ Elisabeth Hewer, from “The Easy Way” in Wishing for Birds 

Notes:

 

Running. With Beats.

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landscape-sunset-sunrise

It’s all incomprehensible, really, including my pitiful attempt to explain it, akin to Brickell’s grasping of a single drop of rain in a thunderstorm.

The tide rushes in under the bridge. The moon, while aging on its 4.5 billionth birthday, remains stout in its efforts and its consistency. It leans in causing the oceans to swell – high tide here, low tide below me on the other side. The other side that is, China. Digging to China with a plastic shovel, scooping wet dirt on a beach in August, so many years ago in youth, yet the cool gritty sand remains on the fingertips.

A brilliant October sunrise. Mechanical in its efficiency, spectacular in its beauty. None exactly the same, this one never to be seen again.

The wind gusts. Leaves scatter from a large red maple, burning, on fire. Seasons pass orderly one after the other, slower than page turns, but they turn, ever so gently one to the next. Continue reading “Running. With Beats.” →