Narrative Medicine Monday: Of Mothers and Monkeys

Caitlin Kuehn’s essay “Of Mothers and Monkeys” draws parallels between her research work with macaque monkeys and her mother receiving treatment for breast cancer in the same hospital. As her mother starts chemotherapy, Kuehn “rotate[s] between the animal ward and the human ward.”

Kuehn wrestles with the ethical ambiguity faced in animal research. Thinking of her own mother’s reaction to chemotherapy, she darts off to her work in the research lab, wondering “what animal first shared with my mother that sudden fear of a throat closing in… I realize that I—as a student, with very little power but a whole lot of responsibility—am complicit in a moral choice I have still not taken the time to make. Some days it is hard to remind myself that medical research has a purpose. Some days it is as clear as cancer. Some days I just do not know.”

When Kuehn’s mother needs injections to help boost her immune system after suffering from a serious sepsis infection, though Kuehn “could do a subcutaneous injection in the dark,” she becomes “shatteringly nervous” whenever she has to give her mother injections; the familiar activity takes on a different tone.

Kuehn’s mother begins to rely on her to answer medical questions, but Kuehn’s scientific expertise is limited to “what I have learned in my undergraduate science classes, or here at the lab. All of it applicable only to non-human mammals, or else too theoretical to be of any use for as intimate a need as this. I have no good answers.” I was struck by the fact that often, even for those of us who have extensive medical knowledge and training, we still lack “good answers” to those questions posed by suffering loved ones.

Kuehn has a strong reaction when her mother declares that she’s fighting her cancer for Kuehn and her sister: “She’s pushed her will to persevere off onto my sister and me. It’s too much pressure to be somebody else’s reason.” Have you ever been somebody else’s reason for fighting for survival? Did you have the same reaction as Kuehn to that kind of pressure?

Writing Prompt: At one point Kuehn responds to Domingo’s convulsions in the same comforting way she does when her own mother’s throat begins to swell during her chemotherapy: You’re going to be okay.  When a patient or loved one has been faced with a particularly challenging moment of illness, is there a mantra you’ve repeated to them? To yourself? Did it help? Write about the situation. Alternatively, reflect on Kuehn’s statement that “death is a condition of life.” Write for 10 minutes.

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Free Write Friday: Makeup


She pulls out the shiny magenta case, like a tackle box but smooth at the edges, a mirror secured inside the lid. “I have to fill it with my makeup!” She exclaims, moving from room to room, collecting her beauty things. “Mom, have you seen my mermaid lipstick?” No, I haven’t. I hid it away somewhere and promptly forgot where I put it; a parent’s prerogative. It’s not really lipstick, just rose tinted chapstick, gifted to her by a well meaning friend. I got rid of it as soon as I was able to without her immediate protest. 

I suspect she suspects me as the thief, the culprit discarding of her treasured beauty trinkets, but I have to accept her eventual disdain for my actions. She’s five. She loves long flowy dresses, she’s gravitated toward high heels since she was two. She collects hair accessories like they’re candy, items to be savored and adorn her mousy brown locks. I worry. Will she be superficial? Will she self-scrutinize? Will she be consumed by what she looks like, how she appears to herself and to the world? Of course she will. But I want to temper the inevitable, preemptively find a way to help her emerge from the challenges of girlhood with the foundation of a healthy identity intact. 

She watches me hawk-like when I put on my own paltry morning makeup, scrutinizing every move: sponge applies a tinted moisturizer, brush of peachy blush, a swipe of eye shadow. I just started wearing mascara again a few months ago, conscious of my aging beauty regimen and tired mama eyes. She studies me like an artist regarding a celebrated sculpture, trying to deduce the method of craft. I’m self conscious as she analyzes me, defensive at my feminism and wondering at my hypocrisy in wanting her to avoid the trappings of the beauty counter world.

She and her brother used to stand below me as I regarded myself in the mirror, applying my cosmetics for the day. They’d ask for a makeup sponge and imitate my movements, swiping over their face and neck. Eventually they’d bore of this and use the sponges to “clean” the bathroom walls; perhaps a more appropriately concrete activity to occupy their imagination. 

She doesn’t really have any makeup of her own, so she fills her plastic box with sparkly headbands and large hair bows. She corrals her tiny hairbrush and her brightly colored elastic bands. I want to protect her from the self-scrutinization, the self-criticism of being a girl in this superficially focused world. I want to adjust her own lens, swap it out with one that filters with self-acceptance, appreciation of variation and an ability to discern a deeper beauty, the kind essential to all that matters.

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