I need a new disease. Not for me, not exactly, but for my son. Instead of stories about two mystery solvers named Sam and Lydia, he wants me to regale him with chronicles of ailments, with tales of viruses and bacteria. This started yesterday, because we were going to the doctor to get Hepatitis A […]
Health/Medicine
This post originally appeared back in February 2011. If you’ve already read it, we apologize. Cassie is frantically packing in preparation for a cross-country move. January 3rd was a bad day for Cee. That morning she had a colonoscopy. The procedure went smoothly. But afterward, Cee felt ill. Something wasn’t right. She had a bite […]
Two decades of rock climbing and a career in writing have left me with two distinct things. One, an ability to step back from the world and make a careful assessment. A zen approach, if you will, to risk and making my way in this world. The second is a seriously messed up pair of […]
First, do no harm. It’s a commandment often incorrectly attributed to the Hippocratic oath yet it provides an ethical foundation for modern medicine. The American Medical Association’s principles of medical ethics begins, “A physician shall be dedicated to providing competent medical care, with compassion and respect for human dignity and rights.” But what happens when a […]
Yup. So the battle is uphill and science writers are in the front lines. I do know words like “antibodies” and “herd immunity,” but as a biomedical writer, I write well about astronomy. I know this isn’t exactly what AG is saying, but it’s all I have to say: last week, I got my […]
Joy Morgan* isn’t a mother, but she may have kids. When Morgan was 27, she decided to donate her eggs. The first time she did it for money. “I was about to go back to school, and I had been drowning in a bit of credit card debt,” she says. Eight thousand dollars is a lot […]
Regular readers of LWON know that I’m fed up with science denialism among breast cancer advocacy groups like Susan G. Komen for the Cure®. As I write in the Washington Post today, I’m also exasperated with my doctor (one I won’t be going back to). I’ve been reporting on breast cancer and mammography for more […]
I haven’t gone for a run in more than a year. The main reason I dislike running is that I’m lazy. But I have a second, slightly better excuse: Every time I run, my legs get unbearably itchy. It starts as a tingling in my thighs and calves. After several minutes, right around the time […]