SPRINGFIELD, Mo.—Friday, Jan 29, 5:00 a.m. “Don’t worry, I don’t have COVID, just some post surgery complications,” I told the Uber driver as I hobbled across my yard at midnight. I knew he would have seen that my destination was the hospital Emergency Department. I laid down in the back seat, writhing in pain. “Aw, thatRead more
Tomorrow, on Christmas Eve, I’ll venture into the wooded territory I know better than the back of my hand: the 200-some acre Ozarks farm where I grew up, complete with a creek, groves of cedars, horse fields, and towering oaks that approach the periphery of heaven. But I’ll not be alone: I’ve invited my daughter,Read more
1. Your children will always need you. “I’m coming to see you,” Mom told me. I still remember feeling a wave of relief wash over me when I heard those words, carried over phone cables resting at the bottom of the Atlantic. I was expecting my first baby, and I was in the Persian Gulf emirateRead more
Over the past few days, I’ve sat at a bar next to an Armenian Priest, questioned the US Surgeon General, and stood in an ambulance as an EMS crew tried to save a motorcycle rider with serious head trauma. I’m on a medical journalism fellowship with 12 of the brightest, most dedicated journalists in theRead more
“They could be like twins,” the shelter director told me, pointing to my swollen belly. My due date was in one week. I glanced down at myself, then back up at the scrawny newborn in her arms. The baby’s dark, crusty umbilical cord was visible through the thin, stained onesie he was wearing. The directorRead more
This post won’t get a lot of likes. Heck, it might not even get one. But journalists were never supposed to write for praise, anyway. They’re meant to publish and broadcast what is important and true, even when it’s not popular. So I’m writing to tip my hat to those journalists—reporters, editors, producers and publishers—who, forRead more
It’s not often that my father raises his glass to offer a toast. But in a Cajun restaurant in downtown Columbia last Saturday, as the aroma of filé powder and paprika worked their voodoo on our appetites, Dad rose to his feet. Glass in hand, he faced his son and the room fell silent. An hour earlier,Read more