It has (you can find it here) not only a great story about a heart, but an appreciation of Oliver Sacks by Robert Krulwich.
Dr. Sacks has liver cancer. As these things go, his prognosis varies depending on whether a given treatment has worked, or whether he has new metastases (the original one came from a melanoma that was eliminated from his eye nine years ago). Robert Krulwich, who's been friends with Dr. Sacks for thirty-five years, took a possibly-last opportunity to talk with him about his life.
It's an amazing, heartbreaking, heart-healing interview.
If I have one regret, it's that I'll probably never get to sit at Oliver Sacks' feet and listen to him talk, or take a look at his collection of elements from the periodic table, or be there when he makes some remarkable connection between the way things are ordinarily and the way they can be in the strange land of the human brain. It was Dr. Sacks who awakened my love for the human brain and the way it intersects with and informs the mind. Before I was ever a neuro nurse, back when I was a music major, I read one of his books and knew that *this* was what I wanted to learn about, forever.
If you want to skip the cardiology part, though I recommend that you *not,* his part of the show starts roughly halfway through. Don't miss the story of his philosophical conversation with the spider.
Dr. Sacks, I hope you get nothing but indigo from here on out.
Sunday, July 26, 2015
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6 comments:
Off to see ~ I love Dr. Sacks also! Thanks for the heads up ~ no pun intended!
Indigo forever, indeed ~
Jo:
I read a great article in the Guardian online you might find interesting.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/25/oliver-sacks-who-has-taught-us-so-much-now-teaches-us-the-art-of-dying
Yes, indeed, some powerful stuff.
Could not leave him a message - tried everything - just have to hold him in the light.
He has had a profound influence on my life - reading his words have helped me to be a better being.
It will be a worse world without him.
EugeneInSanDiego
I read his recent NYT pieces. Pretty amazing. I read "Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat" back when I was a resident and was blown away. He evokes the elegance and beauty of neurology in ways I had never imagined.
We should all get to see indigo one day.
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