Columns

Note: This column describes the author’s own experiences with rituximab and bendamustine infusions. Not everyone will have the same response to treatment. Consult your doctor before starting or stopping a therapy. Last in a series. Read parts one and two. The last crack of lightning started the…

Editor’s note: This story includes discussion of suicide. If you or someone you know needs help, the national suicide and crisis lifeline in the U.S. is available by calling or texting 988. There is also an online chat at 988lifeline.org. Internationally, find a suicide prevention…

First in a series. I woke up earlier than usual for my first day back at the Spencer Cancer Center in Alabama. But as my anemia has gotten worse, getting dressed takes much longer than usual, because I have to rest often. But my ride was coming at 7:30…

“Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump, on the back of his head, behind Christopher Robin. It is, as far as he knows, the only way of coming downstairs, but sometimes he feels that there really is another way, if only he could stop bumping for a…

As the plane rolled along the seemingly endless taxiway to the gate, I began figuring out how I would get from the airport to my house, about an hour and a half’s drive. My ride had to cancel, so I was on my own. This particular problem was part and…

As soon as I felt the tug on my computer cord, I knew the glass would fall. My husband, Mike, and I were getting ready to head to Jayapura, Indonesia, from our home in Sentani, a distance of only 22 miles, for an appointment at the immigration office, but it…

My husband, Mike, had obviously been thinking about my upcoming medical travel. “Do you have a coat to wear when you get off the plane in Atlanta?” he asked. At present, I have difficulty walking through my house. How was I going to make the long journey from the tropics…

“Oooh, poor me,” I groaned from the bathroom. I directed some mean thoughts toward one of my boys, who’d had a stomach ailment two days earlier. “I always get their germs.” I began feeling ill on Nov. 12, and little did I know what the next three weeks would have…

My heart sank when I came across a report on X recently. “Students who begin behind tend to stay behind,” the report from the Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research (CALDER) noted. It added that third-grade test scores “remain powerful predictors of long-term academic trajectories.” Imagine…

“Let’s get some blood work done,” my doctor suggested. A minute later, the nurse appeared, tray in hand. I saw the yellow rubber tourniquet, the syringe, and a tray of vials. I looked for the baby heel warmers to wrap the blood vials as soon as my blood was drawn.