Pager bleats its rising and lowering notes (de-da-do-da-de). Familiar as my name, but as I am wading from sleep to wake, I seem to think that a fire truck, siren blaring, is racing down my street. Fire? Should I wake up? I snap back to me, awake, trying to make out… Read full post »

There is no free market for health care. Patrick Hahn

http://open.salon.com/blog/xylocopa

Oh, and one hellish summer I worked for Wal-Mart. I try to block out that experience as much as possible. Leeandra Nolting

http://open.salon.com/blog/leeandra_nolting 

OK, Judas, give me back my Crest White… Read full post »

Dissociation

It's how you turn… Read full post »

I've been blog-blocked for the past few weeks. Well, I've been busy too, but with the feeling that something isn't getting said, something is, well, blocked from view. Blocked from voice.  There is a lot going on--a spinning vortex of thoughts that are pre-verbal, chaotic. I'm in one of tho… Read full post »

All of us. Each of us.
With our distinct faces,
Our unique thumbprints,
Our own affliction.

For a long time
I have collected pain
And now I don't know
What to make of it.

Isn't this enough? To
Enter this world through
Our own mother's body?
But we are lost.

Grief waits in the alley
For the ambush.

 … Read full post »

I've been visiting her for several months, mostly working on her chronic pain. Sometimes, before a visit, I think about how hard it is to sit with her. She is really depressed. And really in pain. Some of it is existential, but most of it is physical pain from underlying physical… Read full post »

I was talking with my colleagues the other day about the new Washington State Initiative (dubbed I-1000 on this past November’s ballot)—the Washington Death with Dignity Act, usually referred to as physician-assisted suicide.  The act went into effect on March 4^th and for medical pro… Read full post »

Part 1: Suicides 

Each victim of suicide gives his act a personal stamp which expresses his tempera… Read full post »

This week I entered my 60th year. Still young, but the truth is, not so far from the finish line. The other day, I was looking at some of the predictive models we use in palliative care to assist with making survival prognoses. Now, I should point out, these models are… Read full post »

Today when I visited, I sat by her bed again, quietly, with my hand resting lightly on her thigh, hoping she would awaken, but unwilling to wake her. She looked peaceful, almost secretly cheery. I looked around the snug, comfy bedroom for clues about the past week. Her reading glasses and… Read full post »

One morning many years ago while lying in bed, I felt a lump in my breast. It had not been there before, and it did not feel normal to me. I decided that it was cancer. After all, my aunt had died of breast cancer when she was only 35,… Read full post »

My purpose in writing this living will is to provide guidance as to my desires in the event of my illness or disability such that I become unable to manage my affairs or make known my desires and wishes for myself. To the extent possible, I assign durable power of… Read full post »

Recently I met with the family of a man in his late sixties who had had undergone emergency surgery for a bowel obstruction, then had a cardiac arrest, spent 3 weeks in the ICU, and now was in a vent-weaning facility. Second wife, three adult children, one adult grandchild. The patient was… Read full post »

If asked, people often say, when my time comes, I want to die in my own bed.

The house was dark and cluttered, close to what I would have to call dirty, smelled of cigarettes and fried fish. Her partner told me she hadn't really woken up all day, but… Read full post »