Gerard and I were back at our usual lunch spot, sandwiches from Al’s, the window open to the noise of State Street, when he set his phone down on the desk between us and hit play on a grainy clip of a man in a red and blue checkered shirt sitting alone at a table … Read more
The nurse handed me a cane. A standard-issue black cane with a soft Styrofoam grip. As soon as it touched my palm, something inside me shifted. The hospital room, the nurse’s voice, the weight of my diagnosis, they all faded. Because I had seen this cane before. Not this exact one, but one just like … Read more
The mariachi band played just outside the open window, their melody drifting up and over the bustle of Faneuil Hall. Gerard and I sat in our corner office, suite 720 at 84 State Street, with sandwiches from Al’s unwrapped on the desk between us. The energy of Boston, vibrant, chaotic, alive, surged below. It was … Read more
The multipurpose room at Summit School in Ahwatukee was packed. Rows of folding chairs, parents crammed in shoulder to shoulder, the kind of crowd that fills up a gym on championship day but for graduations. The air was thick, humid, smelling like new carpet cleaner and that particular perfume-cologne-deodorant soup that happens when you cram … Read more
It was 8 a.m. and I was late. Again. I’d pedaled across campus faster than I should have, backpack bouncing against my shoulder, still tasting the coffee I hadn’t finished. The lecture hall at Arizona State was already buzzing when I got there, backpacks hitting the floor, notebooks opening, that low roar of two hundred … Read more
There’s a moment from the Peanuts comic strip that I’ve always related to: Charlie Brown gearing up to kick the football. Every time, he gives it his all, determined to finally succeed. And every time, Lucy pulls the ball away, leaving him flat on his back, staring at the sky, wondering what just happened. That’s … Read more
It’s been a while since I posted here. Long enough that I owe you an explanation, so here it is. I stepped back because I was rewriting the book. Not tweaking it, rewriting it. The Dog Story started as something I put together to hand out at speaking engagements, a self-published memoir I never expected … Read more
Multiple sclerosis has been compared to an iceberg because 90 percent of the disease activity may be hiding under the surface and not visible to the naked eye. This is especially true with cognition and fatigue. If your energy levels are low or your memory becomes foggy, doing even simple daily chores and activities can … Read more
Many of you have read my previous article about how a denied insurance authorization led me to an MS relapse, rendering me nonfunctional on my right side. As it turned out, MRI studies revealed that I had two new active lesions on my brain and one on the right side of my cervical spine that … Read more
**Originally posted by Matt Cavallo on Mango Health at http://blog.mangohealth.com/post/143011766224/the-healing-power-of-pets** I remember it like it was yesterday. It was the spring of 2005, and I was laying in my hospital bed wondering if I was ever going to walk again. A month after my hospital discharge, I was devastated to find out at the follow-up appointment … Read more