cancer
September 23, 2009
- The crescent moon is the end of a bracket. It hangs in the sky without nails. One minute I look and it is clearly visible, the next it is barely there at all. The black copse of trees beyond in the field to the south, appears to bow down and pay homage to this spectacle as I do at the dining room table, a candle lit in a blue glass holder that my mother in law gave to me many years ago. There is ...
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September 19, 2009
- 2:47pmWhat do you do when someone you love is getting ready to drop their body (what some people call death)? Not an easy thing, my friend, for you or the one you love. But let me share a little known secret. There is no such thing as death. Death means an ending. My friend Webster calls it a permanent cessation of all vital functions. If you believe that I have some property for you to buy. (A ...
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September 10, 2009
- Last night I arrived home too late to catch President Obama's speech on healthcare reform. So as not to be influenced by other's reactions, I waited to speak with anyone until I could sit down this morning for the re-run courtesy of Youtube. When President Obama spoke of those living with cancer--and other serious diagnosis--who die due to lack of access to care, or are struggling now because ...
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August 29, 2009
- After hearing the three most terrifying words imaginable, 'you have cancer' I was immobilized. Cocking my head side ways like a cockerspaniel that's just heard a whistle, I waited for him to say it again. He didn't. He knew the look. The 'stepping out of the shower into outer space' look a woman gets when she is told tomorrow will be her last day with a uterus. Although surreal and ...
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August 27, 2009
- In August of 2005 over 200,000 of the sickest and most vulnerable people in Tennessee were cut from Tenncare, the state funded medical insurance program. The short film features portraits by photojournalist Joon Powell, narrated by Minton Sparks with vocals and music by Maura O'Connell, John Prine and Steve Conn. Written, produced and edited by Molly SecoursThat year I made a short ...
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August 27, 2009
- Always and Forever Katie The Rose of Tralee by Annette J Dunleahttp://www.shelfari.com/books/12493453/Always-and-Forever-Katie-The-Rose-of-TraleeDescriptionKatie is a farmers daughter in Tralee. She is best friends with Ronan. As they grow up they fall in fall. On the night Katie enters the Rose of Tralee contest under the apple tree where they carved their names as kids Ronan proposes to his ...
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August 27, 2009
- What’s wrong with the current system? Gross inefficiency, redundancy of services (generally lowering overall quality because the added programs lack adequate proficiency and don’t significantly improve access), irrational deployment of resources (i.e. too many specialists and too few primary care physicians, simultaneous physician gluts and shortages in different geographies, an ...
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August 26, 2009
- I won’t lie and say the moment was transformative. I’d always had compassion for my patients, even the less sympathetic ones. On my psychiatry rotation, I received a tongue lashing from my resident for being disorganized–spending extra time with the retired subway driver who’d attempted suicide after secretly battling depression, and now wanted to talk to someone. I objected ...
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August 25, 2009
- Daniel Haller, Julius Mackie, William Powlis—these three men saved my life. I was 25 and in my final year of medical school. I’d had a nagging cough for several months and my friends urged me off and on to get a chest X-ray, check it out, though they half laughed when they told me. No one, I least of all, imagined anything would turn up. I was interested in radiology at the ...
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August 17, 2009
- When she handed me the envelope she was vibrating. She gets that way sometimes. In it was my birthday card and she knew it was a classic. She found one that summed it up and would fill in the blanks. Most of all, she knew it would make me laugh. Her eyes danced between my face and my hands as I opened it. I am notoriously slow at opening things, it ...
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