Louise A. Blum: How It Ends
Selected Excerpts
“Our involuntary systems do their work so well. Our bodies are a marvel. What makes them turn on us? And why yours? What random twist of fate dealt you this losing hand? You suspect the fuel industry blossoming around you, its brine ponds full of wastewater, its chemicals seeding the air, its choking hold on these hills you love.
You are not wrong.
It is not your genes, no faulty wiring in this body that you prize.
You are so young. You never imagined it would come for you this soon.”
…
“They send you home with a prescription for heparin and a box of syringes. Every day you search for an unbruised, unpunctured plot of skin, a new place you can plunge the needle into. You’re running out of spots.”
Discussion Questions
What resonates for you in this piece?
The concept of “lived experience” is important to help healthcare practitioners consider the broad impacts of illness & disability on the lives of patients & their loved ones. What can K’s story teach us about the lived experience of illness?
How can we integrate our understanding of the interconnectedness between human health and the health of the natural world into our approach to healing?
Reflections from #MedHumChat
“I was struck by the pervasiveness of the word/concept "presence": that of nature at the very beginning, then that of the lump, and then of the hand kept on the body "as if your touch will be enough to save it". Presence is something both visible and invisible”—@NRomanoSpica
“The language and the interconnectedness of nature and us, as humans, resonates with me. Also the sentence: "You spend them balancing your identities". I found it interesting to see both parallels to my own experiences and differences.” —@OdyO11
“I think it's incumbent upon us as healthcare professionals to speak what we see. We know our patients are harmed by fracking and air & water pollution. We need to back up the correlative science w/ stories.”—@allison_tandem
About this #MedHumChat
How It Ends was paired with Cave Spring, a painting by Thomas Hart Benton for a #MedHumChat on August 19, 2020 discussing Forces of Nature.
We were honored to be joined by special guest and author of this piece Louise A. Blum (@LouiseABlum).
The pieces for this chat as well as the discussion questions were curated by Allison Chrestensen (@allison_tandem).
About the Artist
Louise A. Blum (@LouiseABlum) is the author of the novel Amnesty and the memoir You’re Not From Around Here are You? She is a MacDowell Fellowship awardee and former teacher in New York.