{"id":2807,"date":"2023-12-04T17:24:56","date_gmt":"2023-12-04T17:24:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ebling.library.wisc.edu\/corpus-callosum\/?p=2807"},"modified":"2024-09-04T21:07:36","modified_gmt":"2024-09-04T21:07:36","slug":"the-reason-we-are-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ebling.library.wisc.edu\/corpus-callosum\/the-reason-we-are-here\/","title":{"rendered":"The Reason We Are Here"},"content":{"rendered":"

Claudia Vilela Casaretto<\/em>
\nSchool of Medicine and Public Health<\/em>
\n2023<\/em>
\nPoem<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I woke up after a surgery<\/p>\n

And my mother was crying<\/p>\n

I clutched the stuffed dalmatian the nurse handed to me<\/p>\n

The same one I held on the plane ride from Lima<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Todo estar\u00e1 bien<\/em><\/p>\n

She would tell me<\/p>\n

Todo estar\u00e1 bien?<\/em> like she had asked my doctor<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A man spoke through the phone<\/p>\n

He\u2019d capture my mother\u2019s words<\/p>\n

But never her tone<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I remember the doctor\u2019s expression well<\/p>\n

Because it hardly changed<\/p>\n

Nothing compared to the animation in my mother\u2019s face<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I am her orgullo <\/em><\/p>\n

She would always say<\/p>\n

Her biggest source of pride<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Eres la razon por qu\u00e9 estamos aqui<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve tried to live up to her words<\/p>\n

And give meaning to everything she had to give up<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I\u2019d be like our family doctor<\/p>\n

The first stranger my mother learned to trust<\/p>\n

El salvo tu vida<\/em><\/p>\n

She was convinced he was the one who saved my life<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But years later her head started to hurt,<\/p>\n

as I learned about the human brain<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Her vision was blurry<\/p>\n

An ambulance was too expensive<\/p>\n

And she won\u2019t be able to drive<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As a student studying medicine,<\/p>\n

I thought about my differential<\/p>\n

The one for an immigrant mother who lost her health insurance<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Blood pressure was in the 200s<\/p>\n

The voice of my professor when he talks about prevention<\/p>\n

Drowned out my mother\u2019s as she explained what she thinks the doctor said<\/p>\n

No lo entiendo<\/em><\/p>\n

I also couldn\u2019t understand<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Why can\u2019t I do more for my mother?<\/p>\n

And for the mother who I met at the free clinic<\/p>\n

The one who asked me if I was going to tell anyone<\/p>\n

That her family was undocumented<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I remember the sentence I wrote in my personal statement,<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d be like our family doctor\u201d<\/p>\n

Sounds hollow now<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Claudia Vilela Casaretto School of Medicine and Public Health 2023 Poem   I woke up after a surgery And my mother was crying I clutched the stuffed dalmatian the nurse handed to me The same one I held on the plane ride from Lima   Todo estar\u00e1 bien She would tell me Todo estar\u00e1 bien?… <\/p>\n

Read <\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,10],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-2807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall-2023-issue","category-writing","tag-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebling.library.wisc.edu\/corpus-callosum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebling.library.wisc.edu\/corpus-callosum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebling.library.wisc.edu\/corpus-callosum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebling.library.wisc.edu\/corpus-callosum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebling.library.wisc.edu\/corpus-callosum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2807"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ebling.library.wisc.edu\/corpus-callosum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2807\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3102,"href":"https:\/\/ebling.library.wisc.edu\/corpus-callosum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2807\/revisions\/3102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebling.library.wisc.edu\/corpus-callosum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebling.library.wisc.edu\/corpus-callosum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebling.library.wisc.edu\/corpus-callosum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}