Jennifer Brea had encephalomyelitis
She was examined by the best and brightest
She was told that anxiety was the cause
These kinds of mistake should give us pause.
Heide Ferrer got tremors and vibrations
Told it was depression, imagine her frustrations.
She took her own life, long covid is now supposed
Another disease dismissed, not diagnosed.
Alison McCabe was in severe pain
She was told it was the flu, so why complain
But it was the side effect of iron infusion
It was the doctor, not her, who had the delusion
There are other cases, if you search you will find
There's a catch all basin of "all in your mind"
some patients even accused of seeking attention.
If docs don't know, maybe best course is abstention.
The process of elimination can be a dead end
If you assume its mental, patient may not mend.
But don't make the mind the dumping ground
For every mystery not yet found.
Maybe I’m too simple
or too shallow
but I’m not angry.
What’s wrong with me?
I was trying to think
of someone I hate,
Jews, CIS guys, republicans,
palestinians, blacks, democrats,
the left handed, authority figures,
central americans, parents, vagrants,
the usual suspects, but I’m coming up empty
Things aren’t perfect
don’t get me wrong
I’ve got a pug nose
a flat chest
a giant forehead
and too much work to do
but I’m trying my best—
Worse yet, I’ve no plummeting anxieties
no obvious neurosis
—that one could be a misdiagnosis
no painful hangnails
no sad life tales
no addictions to defend
or hated ex-boyfriends
I have no emo hooks to pin my verse.
no current melodramas to cozen and coerce
between you and me, I think I’m off the rails
It’s really no wonder my poetry pales.
Yeah, that’s what’s wrong with me.
.
.
Songs for this:
Gee, Doctor by Dimie Cat
Sweet Lovin' (feat. Anna-Luca & Iain Mackenzie) by Club des Belugas
When I think “next time I’ll”
And realize there will not be a next time,
A pressure pain twists my head a notch.
A mistake unfulfilled by repetitious learning.
A twinge says: if there is a next time,
You will err next time.
And if you err next time,
And you happen along the same path again,
Under mostly the same circumstances,
Ah,
Then,
My Boy,
Then you will learn for good.
He continues:
But that’s the small lesson,
And so see it now.
Perhaps you repeat the mistake.
Now
Think of the larger fracture
The event that lent your mistake.
Can you spot the break?
Point it on the print-out.
Were it an x-ray,
Would you worry malpractice?
You may get a call six-months time:
Misdiagnosis; there was no break.
Take off the smelly, itchy cast.
Hit the showers.
Soapy clean.
But in the amnesia,
Recall your other half.
Admit to guesswork.
Think how seldom you trust speculation.
You
The rational one
My Boy
Stroked it off easily this time.
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