Friday, November 7, 2008

A Poetic Pathophysiologic Ode to Hearts

This is what my life has become. I am now writing poetry about what I am learning in school. Some tidbits:


(Disclaimer: the poems that follow might sound bitter, but they are written with no one in mind; just silliness during Patho class!
(These are dedicated to all my fine friends in the healthcare field who are learning all this business with me...I love you guys! Couldn't do it without you!))


Why do you hurt me?
You know my cardiac cells can't replicate...
your hurtful words, your hateful actions,
your neglect lead to ischemic scar tissue.
My heart, which once beat for you
now beats arrythmically
interrupted by the scar tissue of your hate.
My heart, once strong, once healthy
is now on the fast track to sudden cardiac death.
Rapid decompensation, as a result of the diuresis of my tears,
drives my heart to necrosis.
If only cardiac cells replicated
but they don't.
And you're the jerkface who killed them.
~S.Weinkauf, aka, "the Love Doctor"

Heart Haiku

Right heart fail
Congestion of peripheral tissues kills my heart stone dead
I am scarred

Arteries are red,
Venules are blue,
Fibrosis leads to heart failiure,
and so do you!
Happy Valentine's Day!
~A. Manko

My cardiac output is declining
As the multiple hormonal compensatory response of your silence deactivates
my renin-angiotensin system.
My atrial naturetic peptide
is no longer enough to increase my sodium reabsorption
I am edematous with pent up emotion.
The vasoconstriction of my arteries
makes me white, like a ghost
This is how I looked as you walked away.
the net effect of your neurohormonal response
potentiates the degree of my heart failure.
Your love, once verdant, increased my preload;
Your words, now bitter, decrease my afterload.
The vicious cycle of this pain shuts down my sympathetic stimulation, decreasing my heart rate and contractility for you...
~ The Love Doctor

Alterations in the Frank-Starling Mechanism with CHF: by S. Weinkauf

My left ventricular end diastolic pressure decreases as my cardiac output increases.
If my heart were healthy, my x and y axis would be proportional;
because of what you've done, even if more blood enters my heart,
my contractility and output are static.
Does Frank-Starling mean nothing to you?
You change the laws of nature;
structural heart disease without symptoms of heart failure means zilch, right?
Like poison, you change my heart's afterload
and left ventricular end diastolic volume by decreasing my blood volume by inducing my tears, you nerd!
I wish you'd give me back the wasted beats,
the healthy filling capacity.
The days when Frank and Starling ruled my heart's ejection fraction.
But quoth the cardiothoracic surgeon, "Nevermore."

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