Andrea Gibson, "In the chemo room, I wear mittens made of ice so I don’t lose my fingernails. But I took a risk today to write this down".
https://poets.org/poem/chemo-room-i-wear-mittens-made-ice-so-i-dont-lose-my-fingernails-i-took-risk-today-write-downOpen linkView original on lemmy.world
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Andrea's poetry never fails to wreck me in the most beautiful ways
Their death was such a loss to the poetry world.
I did not realise chemo could do that. But it makes sense that hair and nails could be similarly affected.
Ooh it's brutal to see.
My friend worked in the COVID ICU during the early days, and one patient was on ECMO for months, and eventually their fingers and toes began to drop off whenever a breeze blew through. Their family were newcomers, not much English, and the cousin kept convincing the spouse that God would heal the patient and they would grow back. The hospital had to get legal custody of him somehow to let him become palliative.
Couldnt you stick them back on