Tag: health care

disability, health, long covid

Stop the Music: Notes on Good Enough Care

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Stop the dancing/ We’ll share the whole pie/ The night sky/ And we can share the particles

– Cosmo Sheldrake, “Stop the Music”

If reading chronic illness memoirs has taught me anything, it’s that the surest way to get on a doctor’s bad side is to show up with a condition that doesn’t respond to treatment.

This is why I was so happy to find the Good Doctor.

This Good Doctor is a neurologist, a specialist in my HMO. When I first came to see her last year, she recognized I was talking about Long COVID without needing me to lead her to it. She ordered an MRI when no one else would, had me do cognitive testing, and got me into speech therapy. She’s one of the few specialists who has not let the treatment wasteland surrounding this illness scare her away from trying stuff. 

Up until meeting her, chasing care was a game of musical chairs. The song comes on and there’s no choice but to get up and start scurrying for another place to land. 

Continue reading “Stop the Music: Notes on Good Enough Care” →
activism, Career, health, long covid

In Praise of FMLA

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Photograph of a yellow cage holding many stacked cubbies storing a variety of safety hardhats
Photo by Pop & Zebra on Unsplash

In 1993, US President Bill Clinton signed into law the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA). This was one of his first acts as president, and it was the fulfillment of a campaign promise to provide more protection for working families. His predecessor, George H.W. Bush, vetoed it twice despite widespread support for the bill. 

Signing this act into law was, unfortunately, the pinnacle of Clinton’s progressive agenda. He went on to gut welfare and pass NAFTA. Clinton’s presidency is a textbook example of neoliberal abandonment of poor and working class Americans, and by default, almost the entirety of the middle class. 

But at least we have FMLA.

Continue reading “In Praise of FMLA” →
body, Living in the Moment

Days of Miracle and Wonder

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steampunk eye

Less than 24 hours ago, Jasmine was checking my vitals and Jolly upping the saline. Sexy Surgeon had autographed my left knee in purple marker. An unscheduled emergency bumped my mundane procedure to the bottom of the queue, so I was the last patient of the day. A little after 5:00pm, the two nurses heard the buzz, flipped up the side rails, and wheeled my gurney toward operating room. On the way, Jolly grabbed two warm blankets and apologized as she unfolded them over me. “The room is a little chilly.”

“You should use a word other than ‘chilly,'” I slur, “when someone has been fasting for 18 hours.” Jasmine grinned and kicked open the door.

Less than 24 hours ago, drifting in a fog of anesthesia, I offered up my torn meniscus to the doc and his team.

Less than 15 minutes ago, I walked the dog around the neighborhood.

It was a slow walk, sure, and a low dose of Percocet smoothed the way.  Yet there I hobbled, pooch patiently ambling at my side.  Just a blink earlier, I was lounging in pre-op, rehashing family lore with my mom. They had yet to jab my joint open debride the meniscus with a pair of miniature tools that clearly need more oblique names than “the biter” and “the shaver.”

Medicine is magical and magical is art

This is a terrifying time to be alive. It’s hard to ignore disasters both present and imminent, and impossible to quiet the urgency for action in so many corners of the world.  Innovation births drone warfare and the venom of dictators screaming instantly into our pockets. We celebrate each new decade by inventing a thousand novel ways to die.

Also, this is a time of marvels. Someone found their way through the call of hunger and greed. Someone tinkered and played and eventually conjured up arthroscopy. Now we head home from the operating theater with absolute faith in the next dance.

The way we look to us all

Even knowing the work ahead, even wide awake to the call to clean up these messes and respond to the surging need of our neighbors on this planet, I’m grateful.

These are the days of miracle and wonder

It’s a blessing to be alive on this bit of rock in this moment in the story.

The dog is pretty happy about it too.

Lyrics: Paul Simon’s Boy in the Bubble

Image: Roleplayers Guild: The Relics