The Human Touch 2013 - University of Colorado Denver

Dissecting Insomnia
Zia Choudhury
Parking lot Consultation- Rural Workflow
Terry Schumaker
Why can’t I sleep? Is it nervousness? Squeamishness?
Why’s she so different from me? All the pieces are
There.
And all the processes vital, for deciding personhood
Would course through her if they could… It isn’t good, this
Feeling.
Like I’m stealing what’s beyond her control,
Beyond her fl esh and blood and bone, her body her mind and her soul
Are no longer hers, never hers to begin with.
Since in the end she lays on a table, a cold
Instrument.
Not unlike the chisels and saws, of the interested parties,
Tearing through her skin identifying arteries.
They can only assume, the silence in her lack of
Movements is a stoic approval, and who are they to feel
Remorseful?
“Of course it’s where she wanted to be.
She gave her body whole-heartedly, wants to be a part of this
Process.
And one day when we’re doctors we’ll plant trees in her honor.”
But to me it seems uneven, she was somebody’s daughter. •
The tired, faded brown Chevy truck rounded the end of the clinic parking lot
& slowly rolled into sight, stopping tentatively at the emergency door.
The autumn air hung over the grazing cattle in the fi eld beyond, as the
sky shimmered a transparent shade of peach ………
Gathered in the glass enclosure at the clinic door stood the team;
Inside the old truck sat the woman in the passenger seat,
Gripping hard on the handle above the window of the truck door, she sat immobilized
tightly frozen with pain. A fall from her horse an hour ago, she is known to all………
Quick questions and simple exchange…… Hushed words and familiar greetings…
Uttered softly through the partially now ajar truck door…. No bleeding, bad breathing
or blackout or chest pain or anything else…
No insurance card, eligibility or prior auth, not here, not now in the parking lot
Slowly we closed the truck door for her with a high pitched squeak and
hard metal thud.
The smoke from the truck exhaust rose as it slowly moved and rounded the far
end of the clinic parking lot and fading out of sight
Rural workfl ow; known to all, simple solutions
The joy of small town
Communities caring for each other
Heart of workfl ow, low tech-high tech intersect
Together we stood once again in the rural workfl ow •
PG 72
PG 73