Type of Submission: Health Story

Think you want to die at home? You might want to think twice about that.

This graphic medicine opinion piece by a professor of medicine and palliative care complicates the belief that a death at home is less expensive or more satisfying than death in a hospital. The author recounts conversations he has had with home caregivers about the burdens of complicated care regimes; the physical, psychological, and economic costs, and the systemic incentives to shift care to home caregivers who may be ill-equipped. This short piece is useful for discussions about end of life care, both the personal burden for caregivers as well as the systemic and economic incentives. It includes brief quotations from caregivers the author has worked with as well as statistics about end of life care in the US.

Hello, Goodbye

Steve Jobs' last words were: "Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow." Oscar Wilde went with: "Either that wallpaper goes, or I do." (At least, that's how the story goes.) But the way most of us part company with language at the end of our lives is more halting and gradual. Even when a dying loved one is unable to speak clearly, other forms of communication often take over: noises, gestures, touch and eye contact. We have stories in this episode from a hospice nurse, from journalists covering mental health and internet culture, and from language writer Michael Erard who is writing a book about last words and their relationship to first words. The author mentioned in the abstract talks about "biological death" vs "social death" and how living people are involved in both. Dying alone seems like the definition of a "bad death," which led him to write the book about last words - even though they aren't usually any more profound or meaningful than first words. This is a linguistics-focused podcast so there's an orientation to language acquisition that will make this useful to a language class - Spanish or English - without being too distracting for a non-language class.

Grand unified theory of female pain

Loosely connected series of observations and thoughts about women and pain, some literary, some from the author's own experience. One theme is how often womens' pain is ignored or downplayed as bid for attention.

Wait times: Slipping through the cracks in the emergency room.

A man tells the story of watching his wife suffer agonizing pain for several hours from an ovarian torsion, eventually losing the ovary, and uses that as a starting point to describe how often women's pain is dismissed by doctors and other caregivers, especially other women. The story could also prompt discussion of how to account for the health care provider behavior in this story. Do we blame incompetent and insensitive health care providers? What features of their working conditions might produce the behavior this story recounts?

The cookie jar

A rare Stephen King short story that's both publicly available in a literature magazine and on point for a health narratives course. It has the SK mark of supernatural weirdness/ unexplainability and also nicely profound messages about why human beings turn down unlimited good things - like fresh baked cookies - in favor of something horrible, like war. Mental health struggles become a superpower and there's symbolism to keep a literature class well engaged for a class period.

The ART of infertility

This is the link to a website for a national arts organization based in Michigan and Wisconsin. The organization curate art exhibits that portray living with infertility, designes curricula and writing worksins, plans outreach events, and advocates for infertility rights. They dsribe their missions as follows: "Through art, we break the silence around reproductive grief and push back against common misconceptions. We invite you to join us in our fight to make infertility visible." The site includes galleries of exhibitions, including photos with artist statements and a blog that features personal narratives about the experiences of infertility.