Lorraine Ritchie
Sometimes when we are introduced for the first time to something we are not familiar with – an author, a singer, a type of food, a breed of dog – it suddenly starts appearing everywhere. The ubiquitous kawakawa plant was not so ubiquitous to me. I had not really noticed the lush green heart-shaped leaves nor recognised the plant by name until I received a pencil drawing of a kawakawa plant entwined with an intravenous fluid delivery system, drawn by artist Janet de Wagt to illustrate a poem in the book of poetry by New Zealand nurses that I was editing. This beautiful drawing, a delicate and powerful meeting of Western and Māori medicine, piqued my interest and I wanted to know more.
Consider the term ‘medical science’. Easy. For most of us it conjures laboratories, test-tubes, scientists in white coats, evidence-based research, miracle medical breakthroughs. Medical science trips off the tongue so naturally – it’s surely one word, not two. The bond between ‘medical’ and ‘science’ is super-glued. It’s solid and unbreakable. We’ve closed the gap between these words, left no cracks to fall through. Medical science: a term to lean on, a term to trust.
My labour started at 8am but we waited eleven hours before going to the large Edwardian house that had been converted to a maternity hospital. Brian, my husband, dropped me off and I was taken to a room with four beds, three of which were already occupied. I was instructed to get undressed and into bed. Nobody in the room spoke and then I realised that the woman next to me was not sleeping but sobbing quietly. She pulled the covers over her head.
It’s a fine line – to exercise or not. Outside, the sun lowering, the bank of clouds dulling the light, the day almost over. Yet inside, where I’m working at the computer, such lethargy … I can hardly bear to think of moving. Just take the mountain bike and ride twenty minutes up the rail trail and back again, I tell myself. I coax myself the same way when I’m writing – just write for ten minutes – and then put down the pen to find forty minutes have passed. I remind myself it’s always thinking about it that’s the hardest.