#truestory

When a scraggly band of folk musicians arrived to tour the UK, residents of a small Welsh town were enamored with the group’s foot-stomping shows of traditional sea shanties. Then they learned that the band’s leader, known as the Captain, ruled with an iron fist.

Issue no. 172, “Master and Commander,” is now live:

क्या यीशु परमेश्वर हैं?

ईसाई त्रिदेवों में, जो पिता, पुत्र व पवित्र आत्मा के बारे में बताते हैं कि यीशु परमेश्वर का पुत्र था।

मार्क 1:11- और आकाश से एक आवाज़ आयी: "तुम मेरे प्यारे पुत्र हो, तुमसे मैं बहुत प्रसन्न हूँ।"

सिद्ध हुआ कि यीशु परमेश्वर का पुत्र था।

Sant Rampal Ji YouTube

Your potential patient here!

Look, I know you're the professional and you always want to look like you know what you're doing. The thing is, if you don't know what you're doing then tell me plz? Bc maybe, just maybe, I might have some answers about the conditions I deal with every day of my life.

Yes! Look! I have some kidney issues! That's been going on for years now and has nothing to do with the migraines that started last week! If you had asked me about the 'history of rhabdo' that I wrote down after the part about my muscular injury, then you wouldn't have gone on a wild goose chase! And no! My kidney issues do not mean I have been drinking or on drugs. I. Had. Rhabdo. After. A. Core. Muscular. Injury.

Not to mention, no! My hand suddenly not working is not Raynaud's. I have had Raynaud's my entire life. I know what it looks like. I would not go to the hospital to get help with Raynaud's.

Yes! My blood tests were a little off! Yes, I have an autoimmune disease and a blood clotting disorder. Thank you for diagnosing me with a diagnosis that is already on your computer. You are oh-so smart and I am oh-so grateful that you spent three hours on that instead of investigating the real problem.

No, I am not trying to be difficult. You keep just telling me things I already know and that I already told you. My hand and my foot will not move and I cannot feel them! Focus on that.

Oh. You're going to discharge me? Bc there's nothing life threatening? Are you sure? Bc you've done nothing- No! All your research into the wrong things bc you didn't listen to me do not count.

Oh? A new doctor. Wonderful. Okay.

And will you look at that? This guy checked my file, made sure he understood my chronic illnesses, and wow! He ordered a brain scan, bc it's incredibly obvious that there is something wrong with my neuromuscular system and motor control?

Well, will you look at that! A goddamn golfball sized brain tumor! Look how easy that was?

You may have spent years in medical school, but your patients have spent a lifetime managing their chronic illnesses. Listen to your patients and don't be a jerk when a patient with a chronic illness tells you that their chronic illness looks different than you assumed. Bc most patients with chronic illnesses will know their conditions -- especially rare conditions -- better than you. There is a reason we have to go see specialists. It is hard to deal with. Most of us are fine with explaining it in detail to you, but we will get frustrated if you're being ignorant and not even bothering to check our file -- especially if we're waiting 5+ hours only for you to come back and reveal you wasted both of our time.

I must have been Four

Or maybe Five

When Mother brought Tom home

But what remains alive from that afternoon

Is not His face

Nor hers

It is the Doll He gave me

She had a hard Plastic face

Smooth as cooled milk

With painted lips too solemn for a child

And eyes that lived by strange conditions

When I lifted Her

They opened

When I laid Her down

They closed again beneath tiny lashes

Glued delicately to the lids

Thin black crescents

Like sleeping moth wings

I tested this miracle for hours

Up

Awake

Down

Dreaming

Her body was a patchwork thing

Soft cloth torso

Dense stuffed thighs and upper arms

But from elbow into hand

From knee into foot

She became rigid again

A little half-human construction

Balanced between comfort and artifact

And somewhere buried in Her chest

Was the mechanism that unsettled me most

Tip Her backward

And the wind box cried

Not a sweet sound

Not even truly like a baby

Something lonelier than that

A hollow infant grief

Mechanical and aching

As though sorrow itself had been trapped

Inside a tiny dark chamber

The kitchen smelled of cigarettes and supper heat

Mother’s voice moved in and out of rooms

Tom existed somewhere near the doorway of memory

But the Doll

The Doll survives entire.

Long lost now…

Yet even today

I can still hear those weighted eyes blink open

Somewhere in the attic of the mind

And that small cry beginning