PinnedMember-onlyFor a Moment, You Saw Me DifferentJuly 21, 2021 She said…I hate living with these old people…in this old people’s house… You mean assisted living? Yes…I hate it Why…they take good care or you…she grimaced, frowned and spit all at the same time…yes…but the food sucks…I hate this wheelchair…I hate my clean apartment and these old…2 min read
Jan 20Member-onlyIt Was All BullshitIf you were from Charlotte North Carolina in the 1980’s you knew three things: NASCAR, Tobacco, and the PTL Club and they all went together, loosely. NASCAR and Tobacco are acquired tastes but one could not help but be fatally drawn to the spectacle of Jim and Tammy Faye Baker…Religion6 min read
Nov 22, 2021Member-onlyI’m Not Your Friend, I’m Your AdvocateI’m Not Your Friend, I’m Your Advocate I should have known. The year was 2001. I was on the way to work and NPR was doing a story on the “Epidemic of Untreated Pain”. Multiple studies published in journals I don’t read were clear that nationally, pain was not being…Mental Health6 min read
Nov 5, 2021Member-onlyMental Illness is not a Casserole DiseaseMental illness is not a casserole disease. You can stand up at Wednesday night prayer meeting and say, “please pray for my grandmother, she has cancer”. You can post on FaceBook that you had a heart attack and then everyone feels bad and brings you lasagna. …Mental Health5 min read
Oct 21, 2021Member-onlyDear Grammar matrons, I sit corrected.Dear Grammar matrons, I sit corrected. Thank you for pointing out my obvious grammatical and spelling and other errors. I still don’t know what those errors are. I suspect errors of tense. I’ve written 20 stories for Medium, I have 208 followers and have cashed checks from Medium totaling $204.56…Christianity4 min read
Oct 15, 2021Member-onlyI Faked it AllMy best high school friend Mark and we’ll call him Mark because that’s his name.The decade was the 80’s and we were Baptist making us confident of most things and certain of the rest. Baptist’s share a common trait with Catholics and Jewish folks and that is guilt. We graduated…Religion5 min read
Aug 16, 2021Member-onlyDoc, one More Thing, Shut the Door.Doc, one more thing. Shut the door. I had known this man for two decades and to say he was complex was unfair. He was a labyrinth of tangled self-induced misfortune. He was smart, he was proud and his choices were always poor. His father loved him as only a…Mwc Death6 min read
Aug 5, 2021Member-onlyAre You F***ing Stupid?I operated on a young man last month. While visiting him afterwards he was very appreciative of my work and care and the like. I allowed those compliments to wash over me as any surgeon whose done their job for 25 years does. I asked if he’d had his Covid-19…Health3 min read
Jun 3, 2021Member-only“Son, these are the best days of your life, you just don’t know it yet,” that was his response to…“Son, these are the best days of your life, you just don’t know it yet,” that was his response to my mumbled defense. I was attempting to assist Dr. John as a 25 year old freshly minted intern. Dr. John Ochsner remains the best technical surgeon I’ve ever seen but…4 min read
Published in An Idea (by Ingenious Piece)·Aug 23, 2020Member-onlyIntern to the Ramp“Intern to the Ramp,” it was my turn. Charity Hospital New Orleans 1992 and I’d been dodging this moment. I’d seen dead old people which is no big deal, long life bad heart you smoke you will die. We all die eventually or so it seems except for Elisha and…Health5 min read