Between thoughts and words

  Mr. D is a 70 year old gentleman from the nearby village. He has been visiting our clinic over the past three weeks. He has a corn on his left foot. The corn caused severe pain which restricted his mobility. He went to a local traditional healer, who took a blade to it and shaved off the upper layers of the corn. But it only worsened his pain, and he came to us for treatment. I have been doing the standard conservative treatment which includes changing to softer footwear, applying creams that will dissolve the hard tissue and pain killers. But the corn was adamant and the pain relief was marginal. “The pain just doesn’t go away doctor. I am unable to place my foot on the ground early in the morning when I get up. I don’t know when this pain will go away” Mr. D was in severe distress yesterday morning when I saw him.    Over the past three weeks I had gotten to know Mr. D a bit more than just his calloused foot. He lives alone in a small makeshift house made of tin sheet...

She ela could barely walk the three steps across our clinic threshold without gasping for air. She was in her late thirties, pale, fragile, and drowning in her own lungs. Beside her, half-carrying her frame, was her husband, David, thin, exhausted, with dark hollows beneath his eyes. Eight years earlier, just after the birth of their second child, her immune system had turned on itself. The diagnosis was systemic lupus erythematosus. Within two years, it had destroyed her kidneys.    “From the time we got the SLE, we would visit the government hospital clinic every month. We even made friends among other young women her age and their spouses” said David. Through the years they saw several of their SLE-sisters slowly fade away with kidney disease, go on dialysis, and ultimately die within a few years. Even before she developed kidney disease, she knew what could eventually happen.    “Nothing is more horrible than waiting for the inevitable to happen to you. We would ...