This is not an ordinary 1000 Rupee note. It’s a happy memory for me. For those who say I always share depressing stories, this one is for you, for a change. We performed concurrent chemotherapy and radiation on a 70-year-old lady with nasopharyng…
Category: Conditions
From clocking in to clocking out: the transition to retirement
I now understand. As soon as I clocked out for the last time, I started to breathe again. The race, the rat race, everything is fast-paced and there’s no time to breathe when you’re in it. But now I have time, and I don’t know what to…
Overcoming Parkinson’s: a journey of laughter and resilience
In 2017 at the age of 62, I retired from my position as a family nurse practitioner when the small, independently owned private practice where I had been employed for 20 years was sold to the local hospital. I had been having some odd motor symptoms th…
The untold struggles patients face with resident doctors
They’re very easy to spot. Sometimes it’s the crisp, brand-new lab coat or the shadows under their eyes. Often it’s announced in large letters on their ID badge. Or the badge is hidden, which is also a tell. If they’re trying to…
Maximize sleep efficiency with stimulus control
An excerpt from Sleep Reimagined: The Fast Track to a Revitalized Life. Stimulus control is highly useful in treating insomnia and can be considered a partner to sleep restriction because it helps maximize sleep efficiency by limiting disturbances. Sti…
The endless waves of chronic illness
Life keeps buffeting the patient diagnosed with several chronic conditions, like continuous incoming and outgoing mammoth ocean waves flooding over one’s body, raising you high up into the air and then sucking you downward, a struggle to keep you…
Surviving and thriving after life’s most difficult moments
An excerpt from Beautiful Trauma: An Explosion, an Obsession, and a New Lease on Life. The experience of trauma changes us. Like spilled ink, it seeps into every aspect of our being, perceptibly and imperceptibly tinting memory, perspective, identity, …
The surprising power of Play-Doh in pediatric care: How it’s bringing families together
The power of Play-Doh. This sounds like such an ironic phrase considering the malleability of this childhood favorite. Between several personal trips to the local store, our clinic buying several boxes, and getting donations from one of our amazing thi…
Lazarus: the dead man brought back to life
Lazarus is a man of the new testament, living in the time of Jesus Christ in the city of Bethany. He was the brother of two of Christ’s followers, sisters Mary and Martha. Bethany sat less than 2 miles south of Jerusalem in Israel. The story of L…
The psychoanalytic hammer: lessons in listening and patient-centered care
She was one of my first long-term, supervised psychotherapy cases during my second psychiatric residency year. She was young but still a year or two older than her inexperienced, wet behind the ears therapist, and I use that term very loosely. I was to…
