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Banded, stapled, saved
Quitting smoking, the old saw goes, is easy to do—I’ve done it dozens of times. It’s staying clean that poses the real challenge. So, too, with losing weight: despite the pills, pedometers, hypnosis,...
View ArticleMy awesome C-section
Five years ago, I prepared for the birth of my son like any self-absorbed, pampered mother-to-be in the city of Portland, Ore., might: I gave up hot tubs, sushi, stinky cheese, Tylenol, booze, wine and...
View ArticleThe patient I couldn’t heal
I take pride in closing surgical incisions. After a cold blade opens the skin and the internal work is done, the only thing the patient sees, or knows, is their incision. Maintaining symmetry, I use...
View ArticleHere’s a way to do some good
Dear reader,Three years ago today I was wheeled into the operating room at UCSF Medical Center to have a sacral chordoma tumor removed from my tailbone. When they wheeled me out, they had been able to...
View ArticleOnce-conjoined NY twins make post-op debut
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — More than nine months after they were born joined at the lower chest and abdomen, twin girls made their public debut Thursday at the hospital where they were separated.Allison June...
View ArticleAll the weight I didn’t lose
Everyone knows this trick: You hold the camera above your face, stretch your neck and shoot. I take my own picture this way. You see my heart-shaped face, my cutely assertive chin, and my dark brown...
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Why did Bach go blind?
Among medical mysteries involving master musicians, it doesn’t quite match the still-mysterious death of Mozart at age 35. But precisely why Johann Sebastian Bach went totally blind less than four...
View ArticlePlastic surgery after the baby
The sign on the wall pointed east to the Plastic Surgery wing, tucked like a secret in the far end of the hospital. I opened the door into the waiting room; a fountain bubbled in the background and...
View ArticleAngelina Jolie says she had double mastectomy
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Angelina Jolie says that she has had a preventive double mastectomy after learning she carried a gene that made it extremely likely she would get breast cancer.The Oscar-winning...
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My friend the quadriplegic
DAN HARVEY was a fat kid, which is probably why we became friends in the first place. In the rigid corporeal hierarchy of childhood, you’re either the right weight or you’re not: too big and you’re a...
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This kid’s post-surgery speech will leave you in stitches
There’s a certain beauty to these people-waking-up-from surgery videos. The no-filter flow of pure honesty and confusion that comes in the waking twilight of a drug haze can yield some sweet, comedic...
View ArticleMust-see morning clip: “Dick Cheney is a product of modern medicine at its best”
Clearing up any former misgivings, it appears that Dick Cheney does indeed have a heart. On Sunday night's "60 Minutes," the former vice president opened up about a lifelong battle with heart disease;...
View ArticleGoogle Glass in the operating room? One surgeon’s review
For a little over three months now, Dr. Pierre Theodore, a cardiothoracic surgeon, has been using Google Glass in the operating room. Although he's tapped the functionality during procedures on just 10...
View ArticleThe eye surgery I never should have seen
Not long ago I accompanied my boyfriend to Jerusalem for his laser eye surgery appointment. From Cyprus, where Aias lives, Israel is a forty-minute flight; you’ve hardly taken off from Larnaca’s tiny...
View ArticleHow my husband forgot sex
In the 23rd year of our marriage, my husband went into surgery for a rare cancer, and came out a virgin. At first, I wouldn’t know that in the 10-hour ordeal we termed a “slash-and-burn” — a...
View ArticlePlastic surgery after the baby
The sign on the wall pointed east to the Plastic Surgery wing, tucked like a secret in the far end of the hospital. I opened the door into the waiting room; a fountain bubbled in the background and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
My friend the quadriplegic
DAN HARVEY was a fat kid, which is probably why we became friends in the first place. In the rigid corporeal hierarchy of childhood, you’re either the right weight or you’re not: too big and you’re a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
This kid’s post-surgery speech will leave you in stitches
There’s a certain beauty to these people-waking-up-from surgery videos. The no-filter flow of pure honesty and confusion that comes in the waking twilight of a drug haze can yield some sweet, comedic...
View ArticleMust-see morning clip: “Dick Cheney is a product of modern medicine at its best”
Clearing up any former misgivings, it appears that Dick Cheney does indeed have a heart. On Sunday night's "60 Minutes," the former vice president opened up about a lifelong battle with heart disease;...
View ArticleGoogle Glass in the operating room? One surgeon’s review
For a little over three months now, Dr. Pierre Theodore, a cardiothoracic surgeon, has been using Google Glass in the operating room. Although he's tapped the functionality during procedures on just 10...
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