Columns

I started trembling when I saw the tribal warrior approach with a wicked long spear. Yikes! How can I get out of here? I looked around the room and realized there was no escape. The man and his henchman were in the room with me, while reinforcements stood just outside…

It was totally dark, and I couldn’t remember where I was. I was nice and comfortable in this soft bed with its squishy pillows. I blinked my eyes and remembered: I was traveling back to the U.S. to see my dermatologist. I was in the Ambassador Hotel at Singapore’s Changi…

I sleepily scratched a bug bite on my arm. It felt a bit different from a mosquito bite — perhaps it was from a red ant or a spider. I rolled over and went back to sleep. That afternoon there was a sore the diameter of a pencil on my…

“It rained and it rained and it rained.” That’s the beginning of the ninth chapter of A.A. Milne’s “The House at Pooh Corner.” Piglet tells himself that he’d never seen so much rain in his life. I felt a lot like Piglet when I went home in Sentani, Papua, Indonesia,…

Waking groggily, the patient stretched his arm out from under the covers. Hitting the “stop” button on his phone, he groaned. It was time to eat and take his next dose of anti-nausea medicine. After giving it 20 minutes to start working, he took his malaria medicine. To get the…

My breath was short and quick. Pokey, my dog, jumped up on the bed and licked my face. It didn’t help. Thoughts continued to swirl through my brain, not settling down into one focus. I was developing a panic attack. Focusing my gaze on one spot on the far wall,…

My husband and I went through our checklist. “Do you have a week’s supply of your inhaler?” We try to keep supplies on hand, just in case. We have contingency plans for disasters, such as an earthquake. We’re ready to shelter in place or “bug out,” depending on the circumstances.

Pokey was nudging my hand, forcing me into consciousness. He was rolling his eyes, dancing around, and almost crossing his legs. “Get up, Mom! I have to go out.” Pokey is my dog. I wish he understood that on Saturdays humans don’t have to get up as early as on…

“You’ve reached 911. What’s your emergency?” My daughter Beth answered the call, ready to direct the correct emergency department to the scene. Nothing in that job is routine, but she didn’t expect the situation that unfolded. “Please send animal control to my house. There is a Komodo dragon in…

Give ear, me hearties, and listen to my tale. It’s a story of riding the high waves and plunging into the troughs between. Me tale begins many a night ago as the kraken rose up to assail me ship o’ life. Ye find me many a day befuddled…