Uncertainty Principle: A principle in quantum mechanics holding that increasing the accuracy of measurement of one observable quantity increases the uncertainty with which another conjugate quantity may be known. Perhaps it is because I just got back from Albuquerque, a city which has become like a second home to me, that I have Heisenberg on… Continue reading Heisenberg and Your Prostate
Make Yourself At Home
I try not to sweat the small stuff. Really I do. But when I leave home, and leave my menagerie in the care of a house sitter, I am nothing if not explicit. The directions for the care and feeding of my four dogs and two horses (the cat got a reprieve from his Boston… Continue reading Make Yourself At Home
Love in the Time of Cancer
I used to be able to paint my own toenails but that was before age and arthritis caught up with me and these days I can’t SEE my toes, much less paint them. Here in the land of perpetual sunshine and flip flops one is not allowed to have ugly feet, so off I went… Continue reading Love in the Time of Cancer
It Helps to be Famous
Boston is a mighty fine place to visit, if you don’t mind the weather–my trip to the Harvard Writer’s Conference this week started out with four straight days of freezing rain punctuated only by gusts of wind. But cold feet and wet shoes could not deter me and my daughter from our appointed rounds of… Continue reading It Helps to be Famous
Anxiety
Nearly two years ago, I sat with my younger sister at the airport in Houston, Texas waiting for our respective flights. She was going back home to New Jersey, and I was headed back to California. While waiting, she passed the time browsing SAT prep sites on her iPad. Her oldest child, my nephew, was… Continue reading Anxiety
Two Hundred and Nine Short Essays Later
Here I am in Boston, on the eve of my very first writer’s conference, feeling a bit like an imposter. After all, the extent of my writing so far has been this blog, apart from thousands of histories, physical exams and treatment plans over the last thirty-nine years since starting medical school. It occurred… Continue reading Two Hundred and Nine Short Essays Later
Taking Back The Cat
Boston can be a cruel city, and not just because of the weather, although it is forty degrees, windy and raining right now. It is an expensive place to live and eat, the drivers are daunting, and everyone always seems to be in a hurry. A year ago I spend three anxious days here… Continue reading Taking Back The Cat
An American Safari
I’ve always secretly envied families who served as hosts for AFS, the American Field Service, which promotes cultural exchange by bringing high school students from foreign countries here for a year, and by sending our own students around the world. As a doctor-mom busy with the balancing act of raising her own three children while… Continue reading An American Safari
Moving Mom
Another guest blog tonight from my friend Jackie–I can certainly relate and I know many of you can too! My Mother turns 90 next month. She is selling her house of 28 years and moving in with us. It’s official: I am a grown-up. Time is a funny thing. I remember I couldn’t… Continue reading Moving Mom
A True Story
As a child, I dreamed of going to Africa some day on safari. Late at night I would drift to sleep hearing the imagined trumpeting of a bull elephant, and seeing visions of elegant giraffes moving like tall masted ships through the grasslands of the Serengeti behind my closed eyes. I read voraciously—first children’s books… Continue reading A True Story