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By outward appearances, I look just fine in an oldish, grandmotherly sort of way. Yet underneath it all lies a stealthy hidden monster known as cold agglutinin disease (CAD). Most of the time, people can’t tell I have it. A now-distant friend once asked me, “Were you always a…

I swung my leather computer backpack on and hoisted my tote bag onto my shoulder. It was my first time receiving the immunotherapy Rituxan (rituximab). I was quite apprehensive. Over and over again, I repeated the mantra my doctor’s nurse had given me: “It’s not chemotherapy. It’s…

I sank into the overstuffed armchair and leaned back into the super soft throw pillow with a sigh of happiness. I was looking forward to today. My previous salon had closed a long time ago, and it took me over a year to find another place to receive my favorite…

At 68, I imagine I have earned the right to say no to activities I do not wish to do. I have distinguished my likes and dislikes, my preferences and disinclinations. As long as I’m not breaking the law or disrespecting others, I should be able to plan my days.

“Ouch! Consarnit! Dagnabbit! Wrassin-frassin-muchi-fuchi!” I grabbed my foot and hopped around the room one-legged, expressing lots of adjectives about the pain I was feeling. “Man, that hurt!” I yelled, listening as my expressions echoed through the empty house. I was doing a favor for a friend and had just started…

I was doing my best not to panic. I couldn’t get away even if I tried — there were too many assistant vampires surrounding me, and I couldn’t overpower them all. My breath came in short gasps, and I grew dizzy. Ouchie-wow-wow! Oh, that hurt. Over and over, the vicious…

Way back in the early 1990s, when we were preparing to live in a tropical rainforest, a wonderful book was recommended to us called the “Village Medical Manual.” It was a compendium of diseases and symptoms and gave the reader a smorgasbord of ailments from which…

The rain looked like shards of ice in front of my face. I was bundled up as much as possible on that cold November day. The sky was as gray as I felt as we buried my beloved sister-in-law. Because I had just recovered from a recent illness, I stood…

My phone started ringing about 8:15 in the morning. I knew who it was and why he was calling. A wry smile was on my face as I answered it. The Spencer Cancer Center in Alabama makes laboratory results available to patients about 36 hours after a…

The noise was horrendous. People were dressed in penis gourds and grass skirts, all carrying some type of weapon — spears, bows, arrows, machetes. Many had boar tusks inserted through their nasal septum. As they danced and hollered around the small jungle plane I’d flown to this small village in…