Crying, she says: “Dr. Bates, my right implant has deflated. Help!”
“Don’t panic. It’ll be okay.”
We review the options and risks. Fortunately, her 9-year-old implants are covered by the 10-year plan.
“Dr. Bates, can I go bigger this time?”
“Yes, that’s an option.”
Smiling, “Then let’s do it.”
*This blog post was originally published at Suture for a Living*
This post begins with an ending. On February 27th, 2010, my beloved husband died in his sleep. His life ended and, in a way, mine did, too. Widowhood is a lonely word with a dark meaning, but life goes on. A new life begins when your old one ends.
Sorry I’ve been away so long. I missed my blog but I just didn’t know where to begin. I feel like I’ve just moved onto a new planet called Widowhood. Everything is different here. I’m walking on a landscape where everything is out of place. I’m filling out unfamiliar legal forms almost everyday, and I have to carry David’s death certificate in my handbag everywhere I go. Daily tasks are overwhelming. Cooking? What’s that? David cooked all of our meals at home so now I’m eating out. I feel insecure and that’s just not me. I don’t like living on this planet. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Nurse Ratched's Place*
“Will you grab that spider web?” my grandmother said abruptly. We were sitting on an old bench overlooking the river. It was September. I had sprung her from the assisted living home earlier that day.
“Which spider web are you talking about, Gram?” I asked her. My eyes were sleepily watching the timeless flow of the big river, the eddies and swirls along the banks, and the gracefully bending boughs of the old oak trees as they waltzed with the wind.
“There to the left!” she said with certainty, reaching her bony hand into the sky and grasping at thin air. “Get it, will you?”
I looked again but there was nothing. I knew that my grandmother’s mind had developed a little static among the signals, a few crackling wires in the electric grid of her brain, and I figured that her eyes were playing tricks on her.
“I don’t see it, Gram. What does it look like?”
She seemed a little disappointed that I did not share her perception. “It’s feathery, and it’s drifting just over the river. It’s actually quite pretty.” Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at The Examining Room of Dr. Charles*
From the “unsubstantiated evidence” files, I wanted to share with you a quick light that popped on in my head while reading a much-discussed article from last weekend’s New York Times Magazine.
In it, former House & Garden magazine editor Dominique Browning vividly shares her experiences following the folding of the magazine in 2007. This long-form essay is adapted from her upcoming book, Slow Love: How I Lost My Job, Put On My Pajamas, and Found Happiness.
Much can be discussed about her experiences, but I was particularly struck by the account of her response to her newfound freedom:
“In this way, being unemployed is a lot like being depressed. You know how there are millions (O.K., a handful) of things you swear you would do if you only had the time? Now that I had all the time in the world — except for the hours during which I was looking for work — to read, write, watch birds, travel, play minor-key nocturnes, have lunch with friends, train a dog, get a dog, learn to cook, knit a sweater, iron the napkins and even the sheets, I had absolutely no energy for any of it. It made no difference that music and books and nature had long been the mainstays of my spirit. Just thinking about them exhausted me. I had absolutely zero experience in filling weeks — what if it became years? — with activity of my own choosing. Being unemployed meant being unoccupied, literally. I felt hollow.” Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Terra Sigillata*
I consider myself a relatively fit person. Of course, “relatively” is still relative. I try to watch what I eat. I usually exercise five days a week. Heck, I’ve even run a couple half-marathons. But the rest of my days are pretty much sedentary. I sit in a climate-controlled office staring at my computer screen. I make dinner in my highly-automated kitchen. After dinner I sit in the living room sipping wine and watching TV or talking to Greta. Then I go to bed and start the process over again.
That’s not a whole lot of activity for a creature that evolved for endurance. Over a 50 mile course, a race between a man and a horse can be quite competitive. Millions of people all over the world do hard manual labor day in and day out. But millions of others don’t set aside any time for exercise. In my half-marathons, I’ve finished in the top half of competitors, so compared to a lot of people, I must be doing something right. Right? Or do my sedentary days outweigh my occasional bursts of activity? I exercise an average of 4 hours per week. That’s less than 4 percent of my total waking time. Is that really enough to stay fit? Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at The Daily Monthly*
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