"Finally my blood began to coagulate,"
the second stage of hemostasis -- how great!
First I applied pressure to the bleeding spot,
the platelets circulate to stop it (a "clot.")
Coagulation forms a more solid wall,
in other words: a scab (helps after a fall).
That tough thing is just a temporary patch;
could bleed again, like My Girl's "blood brothers" scratch.
The vocab: "hemo" means blood, "stasis"-- stands still;
this natural process shows God's powerful skill:
to keep flowing blood --in, and harmful germs --out,
the fibrous platelet plug closes the vein's spout.
Keep it clean, and with time, the skin looks like new;
(a scar may remind me the pain I went through).
The skin's remodel is "fibrinolysis,"
but what makes it ALL better-- is mother's kiss!
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Coagulation Starter Poetry Contest (just started with the first line provided by the contest assignment, and I went from there, putting myself in this situation, which I have manuevered before... scientific reference I drew from: "Hemostasis" -- a Cleveland Clinic article medically reviewed in 2021).
My mother had the energy of a five-ring circus
She refused to walk with slow people
unless they let her run circles around them while she walked
She kept her cancer a secret none of us kids knew.
My sister called and said Mom went by ambulance to a hospital.
I drove four hours to visit her, and they were sending her home.
She woke up long enough to say, “why are YOU here?”
They insisted on bringing her to my truck in a wheelchair.
I thought this was silly.
This is a woman who can run laps around a truck while it’s moving.
Is what I still thought.
When we got to her apartment building she handed me her keys.
She said, “Go down the hallway and get the wheelchair.”
I thought she was kidding, so I laughed.
Then I felt small.
She meant it.
I got the wheelchair and manuevered her to her apartment.
It was the last day she would be there.
The next two months she spent in hospitals or a nursing home.
The last day I saw her was her last day on Earth.
I began praying God would take her home.
She was tucked into her bed in heaven by angels that night.
Cancer is a disease I would not wish on anyone.