Cutting for Stone

by Abraham Verghese

but subconsciously, in entering the profession, we must believe that ministering to others will heal our woundedness. And it can. But it can also deepen the wound.

Surgery was the most difficult thing I could imagine. And so I became a surgeon.

for the secret of the care of the patient is in caring for the patient. Francis W. Peabody, October 21, 1925

Sound Nursing Sense is more important than knowledge, though knowledge only enhances it. Sound Nursing Sense is a quality that cannot be defined, yet is invaluable when present and noticeable when absent.

Love so strong, without ebb and flow or crests and troughs, indeed lacking any sort of motion so that it had become invisible to him these seven years, part of the order of things outside his head which he had taken for granted.

“What first-aid treatment in shock is administered by ear?” His answer “Words of comfort!”

She laughed at the strangeness of liking Ghosh so much, when she wanted so much to dislike him.

“If faith and grace were meant to balance the sinful nature of all humans, hers had been insufficient, and so what she felt was shame. Still she must have believed, even with all her imperfections, that God loved her and forgiveness awaited her in His abode, if not on earth.”

How beautiful and horrible life is, Hema thought; too horrible to simply call tragic. Life is worse than tragic.

“Doubt is a first cousin to faith,

when things had looked so bleak, so terrifying, so tragic with Melly’s death—it was at those moments that God’s grace came, and that God’s plan was revealed, though it was revealed in His time. “I can’t see it, Lord, but I know You can,” she said.

Jesus lives! Thy terrors now Can no longer, death, appall us; Jesus lives! By this we know Thou, O grave, canst not enthrall us. Alleluia!

“God will judge us, Mr. Harris, by”—her voice broke as she thought of Sister Mary Joseph Praise—“by what we did to relieve the suffering of our fellow human beings. I don’t think God cares what doctrine we embrace.”

We need medicine and food. But we get Bibles.” Matron smiled. “I always wondered if the good people who send us Bibles really think that hookworm and hunger are healed by scripture? Our patients are illiterate.”

When we cannot cure or save a life, our patients can at least feel cared for. It should be a basic human right.”

Little fellow just forgets to breathe.” “Why should he have to remember? Poor baby.”

guilt leads to righteous action, but rarely is it the right action.

‘Begin at the beginning and go on until you come to the end: then stop.’

Maybe it was written on my face that I’d become aware of human complexity—that’s a kinder word than “deceit.”

I was conscious of the baby’s skin, the way it chilled my hand, sucking the heat out of it as I ran—I knew I’d never again take being “warm-blooded” for granted, having now felt the alternative.

When Ghosh emerged from the house, running as fast as he could, and when he grabbed me, fear and concern in his eyes, the last of my illusions vanished. The adults weren’t in charge. There were clues to that earlier, I suppose, but even when I had seen the old woman pummeled by the Emperor’s guards, it suited me to believe that Hema and Ghosh still controlled the universe.

the uneventful day was a precious gift.

The key to your happiness is to own your slippers, own who you are, own how you look, own your family, own the talents you have, and own the ones you don’t. If you keep saying your slippers aren’t yours, then you’ll die searching, you’ll die bitter, always feeling you were promised more. Not only our actions, but also our omissions, become our destiny.”

The trick was not to think.

I still loved her. I wished I didn’t.

Morphine “disconnects the head from the brain,” so although the breathlessness was unchanging, the anxiety would be gone.

When his chest stopped moving, my sorrow was mixed with relief: I’d been matching every breath of his with mine for days. I know Hema felt the same way as she laid her head on his and wept, her arms still cradling him.

WITH GHOSH’S DEATH came a new understanding of the word “loss.”

Be careful! Travel expands the mind and loosens the bowels.

“Death is the cure of all disease, isn’t it? No one is prepared for news like this, no matter what. I’m sixty-five years old. An old man. I have had a good life. I want to meet my Lord and Savior.” A mischievous light flashed in his eye. “But not just yet,”

PRAYED, BUT IT DIDN’T HELP

The mind was fragile, fickle, but the human body was resilient.

If it was up to God, He did not seem to listen.

“What treatment is offered by ear in an emergency?” This was an old saw, particularly in Edinburgh. Still, the old saws were not well known anymore, a matter that distressed Braithwaite greatly. He saw it as emblematic of a slackness in the new generation of trainees, and it was sad that only one person knew the answer. And that too a medical student, of all people. “Words of comfort, sir.”

‘Call no man happy until he dies,’

The tears streamed down her face, and in an instant the mood in the room went from the joy of reunion to profound sadness, as if those two emotions were invariably linked.

Go, my sweet man. Go with God. There is no one else like you.”

I wasn’t angry with Genet. She was consistent, if nothing else. I was angry with myself because I still loved her, or at least I loved that dream of our togetherness. My feelings were unreasonable, irrational, and I couldn’t change them. That hurt.

The pain, the heartbreak, if there is to be heartbreak, are all mine—that comes with the gift.

It was now out of their hands, and that made the tension almost unbearable.

There is a point when grief exceeds the human capacity to emote, and as a result one is strangely composed—she had reached that point.

“Marion, remember the Eleventh Commandment,” he said. “Thou shall not operate on the day of a patient’s death.”

her shoulders slumped, leave her still-breathing child. It must have felt to her as if she were abandoning him.