In early February this year, a few days after a magnetic resonance image confirmed that an aneurysm at the root of my aorta had reached a worrisome size, I received a phone call from the office of my primary care physician. The MRI had picked up an “incidental” finding, unrelated to the aneurysm; could I […]
Month: November 2014
As with the four previous, we kicked off the week with Colin Norman’s tale of undergoing heart surgery. He’s feeling good but has turned his thoughts to the genetic nature of heart disease. He perused his family album in his mind and fretted for his daughters’ future. Then Erik made several connections between the institutional capacity […]
A little over a month ago, Liberian Thomas Eric Duncan became the first person in the US to develop ebola. In the days before he died, Duncan infected two nurses. Last month, a New York doctor who had been working with Doctors without Borders in Guinea was diagnosed with the disease, becoming the fourth person to develop […]
You’ve probably done this already or if you haven’t, you will: you sit in your doctor’s office and look at your doctor, your doctor sits at a desk and types on a computer. Your doctor apologizes for the lack of eye contact and explains something about health records now being electronic and tied to reimbursement. […]
It doesn’t seem right that something as basic as time should be so annoying. No, it’s not time itself that’s annoying. I’ve more or less made peace with the fact that it’s marching on. The thing that’s annoying is when the stupid time keeps changing. In college, I appreciated that extra hour of sleep in […]
I’ve been traveling a lot recently. I spent the month of August in China and Vienam, I went to Sweden in October, and of course I’ve been bouncing between my home in Mexico City and the good ol’ US of A. And you know what all this travel has gotten me thinking about? Institutions. I assume […]
Six weeks after intricate surgery to replace an aneurysm at the juncture of my heart and aorta with a polyester graft, I’m almost back to normal. I’m walking a lot, about to start biking again, and I’m well on my way to a complete recovery. But there is still a nagging question: Does my family […]
In the beginning: The week started with Part IV of guest Colin Norman’s every-Monday series on undergoing heart surgery. (Spoiler alert: He lives to write another day.) Next: Craig went looking for a creature from an extinct species—and saw one, sort of. Then: Christie got her gun and went looking for creatures from non-extinct species—and saw them, for real. And: Jessa […]
