“I thought and remembered a great deal about my relationships while I was in heaven, but not at all about my work or other earthly issues.” 7 Lessons from Heaven. Mary Neal, MD Voting is an earthly issue; politics and democracy consume our thoughts and conversations these days. What if we reframed our politics in…
Tag: Health
Where Is My Nose Running To?
Rhinitis running to drive me crazy! “vasomotor rhinitis seems to be an exaggeration of the normal nasal response to irritation, occurring at levels of exposure, which doesn’t bother most people.” Vasomotor Rhinitis, Asthma + Respiratory Foundation New Zealand Way, way back my GP told me my non-stop congested nose was traumatic rhinitis. The trauma of…
Roller Coaster Fatigue Management
It dawned on me today that managing my fatigue is like politicians managing the pandemic. They’ve created a roller coaster of lockdown, reopen, restrict, reopen; my fatigue has boxed me into a roller coaster of day-long couch time, add some cognitive activity, rest, add walking, restrict, add walking to cognitive, take a week off. You…
Pandemic Stages Are Like Brain Injury Stages
The longer this pandemic grinds on, the more similarities I see with how my brain injury recovery went. It’s so sad that physicians and rehabilitation haven’t innovated in the last two decades to change those stages. I wrote my latest post for Psychology Today on this topic, on how a concussion, or COVID-19, devastates us…
Learned Helplessness and the Medical Profession
This pandemic reminds me of learned helplessness. I wrote on it on Psychology Today, but I’m left to wonder why doctors exhibit it in response to #COVID19?
Pain Focus in Medicine
Because medical professionals focus on pain rather than healing its cause, patients learn to talk about pain in order to get help.
Low-Intensity Laser Therapy for COVID-19
Back in December 2019, during Christmas break, I developed an unusual pneumonia and turned to my low-intensity laser therapy unit to help me breathe. I’d been in close contact with someone whose wife had a pneumonia that was stumping doctors and who himself had a cough. The cough was easily attributable to a long-standing cause.…
Medicine Must Collaborate to End the Pandemic
The siloed practice of medicine has lead to a terrible pandemic response. The Swiss Cheese model of preventing COVID-19 transmission demonstrates the power of whole-picture thinking.
Four Month Post-New Concussion Followup
Election 44 day, and it feels like a good time to write on concussion. Recovery at first stretched slow slow slow then in August snapped into sudden improvements. That’s brain injury recovery with treatment for you. Writing The blast injury ripped apart my ability to respond to writing reminders, remember to work on posts, and…