@jenniferbaker
Canadian lit and agriculture scholar; poetry editor, Arc Magazine; poet. Abject Lessons (above/ground press, 2014), Groundling (Trainwreck Press, 2021; above/ground press, 2023), Memento Mishka (Apt. 9 Press, 2023).
14/? I don’t know why I’m working this out late at night on a public forum. I just want to know where that deep, inter generational
shame came from. And I guess I want to take up 14 bits of public space, still surviving it.
13/? … which I had taken this morning without success. I couldn’t figure out why the doctor looked so alarmed about how long I had been having problems with my lungs before I came to the ER. Why she was asking so many questions about my family doctors’ care (hi Ontario!)
12/? I kept asking a terrified Dave about *why* it was so serious. I felt like I had conned my way ahead of all these sick people in the ER by just saying the right thing, somehow making it look worse than it was. I thought I hadn’t deserved the urgent care if I just needed to take my puffer…
11/? I learned today that a death from asthma can look like a slow, slow drowning, congenital respiratory failure is the body turning against itself, refusing to work. It’s not instant. Even after all the steroids and inhalers and tests and doctors notes for a week or rest, I felt guilty.
10/? …alarmingly sweaty, ignoring my raggedly breathing, coughing, waking with extreme fatigue and dark circles under my eyes, headaches, strained neck muscles, back and chest pain, many days and weeks of congested lungs.
9/? The feeling of not being important enough to take up a space in the ER or doctors office is so ingrained. And the inherited ideas I had about asthma were so wrong. I thought it would look like a movie suffocation. It doesn’t. It looks like me, carrying out my normal activities…
8/? Even after that, today, I found myself repeating the things that have killed or disabled my family members: “It’s really not that bad,” “Its just a cough and I’m getting better,” “I’m just feeling unwell because I’m having a tough time with my vaccines,” “I’m really ok.”
7/? In December, it took 5 days of my coughing up blood to convince my parents that a Christmas holiday visit to the ER (across from he street!) was necessary enough to miss a family gathering. I had acute pneumonia.
6/? My mother has had asthma for years. She has minimized her symptoms and normalized flares so much that I never knew what a life threatening attack actually looked like. She’s never been admitted; she just can’t walk very far outside.
5/? In my immediate family, doctors were important but illness was an inconvenience for everyone. Appointments were only for serious things. Mild suffering did and does not count. Sick days were for high fevers and vomiting.
4/? In 2021 I was witness from afar as my aunt let herself die of liver failure. She was on the transplant list but stopped her medication because she didn’t like the side effects. She avoided making appointments because she didn’t want to burden anyone.
3/? When I was sixteen, my grandfather died from
a pulmonary embolism, instantly, on his way to town on a normal day. Later my grandmother said he had made side comments for weeks about death, but had masked his discomfort for fear he would lose the farm and be put in a retirement home.
2/? I come from a long line of people who died from a complicated relationship with the health care system. My great grandmother died in my grandmother’s arms from cardiac arrest because the farm was remote and the ambulance couldn’t make it fast enough.
1/? Currently working through a lot of feelings about growing up rural and working class while recovering from a potentially life-threatening asthma flare. First time I’ve ended up in ER, rushed through in 17 minutes. (I responded to all the drugs and am ok but… can’t sleep.)
I know it's not that remarkable, but I'm feeling kind of chuffed to find out that Groundling is going to be available at the University of Victoria library. That's so nice!
Fantastic! Congrats, Kim!
I loved this poem!
Perennial tweet: Life is pretty weird and sad sometimes, no?
Superintendent here because I did not remember to ignore the inner voice that said “YES I am a Doctor I can do things involving plumbing myself.” Anyway, we just won’t have a bidet then.
Calling @anotherdavidcurrie.bsky.social
Please do.
Look, these all have the ring of truth to them so I think the poets' job is done.
Genuinely going to try to make my online presence less about my cat this time. (But this post is, tacitly, about cats. Have I already failed?)