There’s a particular bit of conversation I hope never to hear when my doctors are discussing surgery or testing. Not the details of the procedure. Not the possible outcome. Not the pain (and let’s be real, we all know “some discomfort” is actually “pain”). It’s the post-op directions that pose a conundrum: “You’ll need someone to drive you home.”
Nothing sparks dread and uncertainty for me like that statement. It’s a …
An excerpt from A Caregiver’s Love Story.
Dying and introspection happening at the same time were a dual reality that I found impossible to ignore when Bill was not doing well. As Bill’s poor prognosis and impending death began to reflect on our life, it was getting harder to …
Just over seven years ago, on April 22nd, my father heralded his 88th birthday with a thoracentesis to drain the fluid from his lungs. On May 3rd, less than two weeks later, he died, due to a blockage in his abdomen leading to sepsis, most likely from two 20-plus-year-old sarcoma surgeries.
Between these events, he went through a series of seemingly unstoppable medical issues. There was the discovery of that sarcoma …
The passage through life is, at times, exciting, stressful, and confusing. Like being on a roller coaster ride: strapped in, climbing up to the high peaks, and surging down to the valleys. It’s a ride where I hang on for dear life with the hope I can endure the trip until it ends. Don’t get me wrong, I do utter intermittent screams of joy here and there, but I’m happy …
By definition, diagnosis is “the identification of the nature of an illness or other problem by examination of the symptoms.” Unfortunately, that is akin to saying that cooking is the process of examining the ingredients. As a result, there is a tendency to rush to treatment when the symptoms are obvious. When the treatment is not effective or the symptoms are less than obvious, the definition of diagnosis does …
I awake each day, looking for the sunlight to brighten my life, just as you may do.
I wonder who I will meet today who might have an impact on my life, just as it may be for you.
I organize in my mind my “to do” list for the day … all the things that I will try to accomplish, promising my best effort, just like you.
I whisper a prayer that …
One of the difficulties faced by those of us who are chronically ill (which includes chronic pain) is that others don’t understand what we’re going through. Our culture does a poor job of educating people about health challenges even though they’re a natural part of the human condition.
We wish with all our hearts that others understood these four things.
1. When you’re chronically ill, you’re likely to look fine. When I …
Oh no, it’s a doctor hopper. You know who I’m talking about: the patients with twenty previous doctors documented in their chart. The ones who took years to be diagnosed. The ones who still have not been diagnosed, but insist something is wrong. They’re just jumping around until they get their way, you seethe.
Really?
Every doctor’s appointment is a commitment of time and money for a patient. I think I speak …
I spent the first three days sitting next to my dad’s hospital bed, watching his chest rise and fall slowly. He was asleep the majority of the time, fighting off something unknown. Anytime he moved, I jumped up from my chair and stood where he could see me just in case his eyes fluttered open for a split second. I wanted him to know that I was there, that I …
A recent article in Smithsonian Magazine lauded a man in Indonesia for removing a motorcycle tire that had been stuck around a crocodile’s neck for six years. Known by locals as buaya kalung ban, which means “crocodile with a tire necklace,” the reptile had successfully thwarted previous rescue attempts.
Though the outcome was considered a success – not once did anyone stop to consider whether the crocodile …
My husband Jeremy and I stood just inside the entrance of the NICU, between the front desk where we used to get our bright orange stickers, permitting our entry as proud parents of Reed Robinson, Room 363, and the washing station, where we meticulously washed away any germs that could harm him. It had been about a week since Reed took his last breath in my arms and it took …
When you think of a hospital chaplain, what comes to mind? A bearer of bad news? An imminent turn for the worse? A symbol of death and dying? That’s what I used to think. Chaplains showed up in end-of-life situations, and I’d give anything to never encounter one.
I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Last week, I had the privilege of listening to a chaplain at my local children’s hospital as he …
One day in a moment of crisis, I made a decision to survive.
I did not ever expect to make such a decision. Just the week before, I had high hopes for a new beginning.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” my husband smiled. “We can just keep driving, head straight to Key West.” Instead, we walked into the hospital, my leg burning with sciatica, my back pinched tight with …
I want to scream out loud: “Wake up people, we’re circling the drain!”
Does anyone notice the state of our country, the state of the world that we are living in? The world is torn apart by something we cannot even see. Millions of lives have been lost; others who survive the COVID attack are frequently left with long-term side effects, most of which are not yet remedied by medical science. …
A man discovers an unsettling sight during a bathroom visit. It leads to a sequence of rapid medical events with laggard resolution.
“Jillian Palmer” is an independent bakery chef. She shares a sample-size blueberry pie with a personal friend, “Jack Timbal.” His family has purchased many large pans from Jillian before with much appreciation. This small pie is large enough for three servings.
Despite cutting back on desserts in recent weeks, Jack …
You know that feeling you get from an insincere apology? Your stomach flip-flops. Your heart pounds. You feel irritated, disgusted even. A vague dissonance nags at you. It’s the same disorienting feeling you get from an insult wrapped in a compliment. Or from realizing you’ve been scammed, and the perpetrator got away. That feeling.
Non-apology apologies are easy to identify. They’re the I’m sorry but, the sorry you feel that, the …
He was the middleman — the man that took the crack cocaine from the main guy, the drug dealer and then sold it to his “clients” and kept a percentage of the money for himself and the rest to the dealer.
It was a fine-tuned operation. You could make a lot of money. But you had to be precise, or else.
The patient was a tall, slim 20-something man. He had a …
I wake up feeling exhausted. This seemingly never-ending nightmare of mutating coronavirus keeps sucking the life out of me. During this past summer, we were receiving some signs of hope that COVID was in decline; this hope was ripped out from under us when the delta variant stood its ground and went rogue. Now, a new and upcoming challenger to the title “most transmissible coronavirus,” Omicron, is usurping a good …
Medicine today is single encounter-oriented, with the patient medical record structured to support one encounter at a time, where an encounter is either a single outpatient visit or an inpatient stay. The problem with this single encounter orientation is that it often takes a number of encounters to get a correct diagnosis and that care for a medical condition could extend over many encounters before the medical situation can be …
Today, most medical organizations have gotten away from paper medical records and use computerized electronic medical record systems (EMRs). The U.S. government has encouraged the use of such systems, no matter how large or small these systems are.
A current problem is that a patient may be seen in different medical organizations and have medical records in different EMRs. This has promoted the concept of “interoperability,” allowing one EMR system to …
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