There, But For the Grace of God, Go Eyes

Leahy Medical Center, Nurse training program, April 1635

My dearest aunt,

I am well. I hope this letter finds you well. We are all fed very well here. There are many things I am learning that I am not sure how to tell you. I am looking to the time when I come home to speak to you but that is for later.

Today, I learned the importance of listening.

I find myself drawn to the ER, the Room of Emergency and that is where I was when a German woman brought her son and an up-timer boy who is a friend of her son.

They were, as young boys are wont to do, acting foolishly. It is comforting to see American boys acting in ways that compare well to young German boys for foolishness. The two boys were pretending to be accomplished swordsmen while using long pieces of wood. Luckily no one had given them real swords or this letter would not exist in its current form.

My pathology rotation is two months from now.

The German woman felt that her son should suffer as penance for his foolish swinging of wood sticks. Her boy should have no special treatment so that he will always remember his foolishness by the scar that would result, she demanded. The gash opened just under the boy's left eye and curved about until it cut the transverse facial vein. It would leave an obvious scar, I thought.

One of the wooden sticks had a small piece of wire attached to it. Neither boy noticed it until the damage was done. That was the true culprit, but done is done.

The physician would not listen to the angry mother but he did use a device that he says he saves for special cases. He stapled the edges of the cut together. Staples are metal clips and they pinch the skin closed. The German mother was suitably impressed. The staples appeared very painful and were hideous to look upon but the bleeding stopped and the skin was closed. The boy said the staples did not hurt very much and the mother of the boy seemed upset by this.

I was not as attentive to the crestfallen German boy as I was to the apparently uninjured but visibly upset American boy. I noted a smear of blood on the pants of the boy. When he noticed that I noticed, he turned away as if to hide the stain.

The American mother arrived and there were a great many apologies and much forgiveness on the part of both mothers. My attention was on the American boy and the blood on his pants.

I approached the boy who cowered from me as if I was about to use the staple device upon him.

"Whose blood is that?" I asked him in my best commanding English.

The blood looked like it was smeared. I could have thought he had wiped his hands on his pants but his actions suggested something else.

"It wasn't my fault!" the boy said.

Again, now with greater authority, I demanded whose blood that was. The boy said he had something called a merit badge in first aid and looked at the German boy who avoided the look and I knew there was a problem.

Having listened to the American boy I now decided to act.

"Where is your brother?" I demanded of the German boy in my best commanding German. I noted that my English did not attract the attention that my German did. The word "now" does not seem to have the same effect, shouted or spoken, as the word "achtung."

"He doesn't have a brother!" the American boy stated firmly.

"Quiet!" the German boy shouted in English.

"Where is Maria?" the German mother asked, intrigued by my questions and noting something she found familiar upon the face of her son. As with all boys, this one was a very poor liar.

I walked to the American and pointed to the pants.

The rest was shouting, cursing, an ambulance ride, and a great deal more shouting. I was fortunate to witness the careful embroidery of the girl, Maria, as opposed to the hurried and mechanical stapling of the boy. American physicians are very concerned about how a girl looks and consider the face of a boy no more important than his arm or leg.

The American boy had used a mere compress to stop the bleeding from the wound on the face of the girl, Maria, who was four years old and very angry at the American boy and her brother. The attempt was to hide the wound from her mother until something could be done about it. How they expected the mother not to notice a gash across the forehead of her young daughter defies coherent explanation but they are boys and no one requires one.

By listening I was able to determine that Maria had attempted to come the defense of her brother and the American boy had accidentally hit her after he had accidentally cut his friend. The girl did not want her mother to know that she was playing with the boys and not doing her chores.

This wound crossed the top of her forehead along the line of her eyebrows and missed the eyes.

The physician used special sutures which are just fine threads with small, curved needles to pull the thread through the skin. The physician called it plastic surgery even though no plastic was used.

I mentioned that I could do as well and the ...