Why does a stroke patient stop talking?
TL;DR: Usually because talking makes us feel stupid, not because we have nothing to say. After my stroke at fifteen I had word-finding trouble. I could look straight at an object, know exactly what it was, and never reach the word for it. So I went quiet at the...
Why do nurses remember what a patient is most afraid of?
TL;DR: Because somebody asks, and somebody else carries it. I was fifteen, a few months out from my second brain surgery, and I told my doctors the thing I feared most was losing my hair. I woke up with most of it still there. My nurses did that, and I did not learn...
What Does Real Support Look Like
TL;DR:You find one person willing to be your hands. After brain surgery left me foggy, I couldn’t get through the SAT alone. Holly Camorata sat with me on weekends, reading each question aloud as many times as I needed, and filling in the bubbles with a #2...
Should you let people see what you carry?
TL;DR: Yes, when you choose the moment. At the ATI Super Conference in 2018, Richard Menneg who hired me to speak asked me to carry my heavy backpack on stage. I thought it was just my bag. He was showing a whole room what I’d hauled around for years, long...
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