I haven't posted anything recently because, for better or worse, there's nothing to really post. More for the better. The wait used to terrify me. The enormity of time, its slow passage, all those seconds and minutes to ruminate and conflagrate. But the fires are still, and time plods on with small, child-sized steps. I see my patients, and things largely feel normal. I return home, spend time with my husband, our daughter, and things largely feel normal. The follow-up scan i

We are in the middle of International Brain Tumor Awareness week and what better time to talk about brain tumors. I will preface this by saying that I'm a neurologist, not a neuro-oncologist, and this is meant to be a very general, bird's-eye view. There are plenty of resources out there which can delve into much further detail. When faced with a new mass, no matter where in the body it is discovered, the first question usually is "is it benign or malignant?" What does this m

My father went to the ER in April 2020 after developing an unrelenting fever and worsening shortness of breath. At the time this all happened, the COVID diagnosis was not surprising, but still, I felt the floor give way beneath me. From the phone calls letting me know my father had fallen ill to the phone call informing me he had passed, I was in free-fall. Even afterwards, I kept falling. The wind was whistling by my face, and it became the song stuck in my head as the groun

Radiation is done. The bell has been rung. Temozolomide, complete...for now. One road has reached its conclusion, but what lies ahead is murky. Follow-up scans, follow-up appointments, and taking next steps. The bump is all but vanquished. That is the mantra we murmur in whispers when we wake up in the morning and before we retire for the night. The neurologist is still in charge. All the compartments are reinforced with lead and steel. The larger compartment has her clinic s

For the first week of radiation treatment, I would drive my husband to his sessions. After dropping our little one off at school, we would hurtle down the road to throw ourselves to the mercy of rush-hour traffic. The ride was a chaotic mix of elements. Metal blasting over the speakers. Cars toying with fate and boiling emotions, zipping in and out of lanes, cutting me off. My husband, asleep for most of it. At times, I realize my inner narration of how terribly someone is d

A poem about who we are, and what we own of our pain and ourselves.

It is strange, being in the routine I’ve had for years after some time away. The trees are starting to explode into color, a marked shift from the steaming heat the last time I was seeing patients. My tiny car is parked outside, and I watch it from my office window, its color starting to match the emerging fall palette behind it. It’s the same car I’ve had for 8 years, one of the few things that hasn’t changed. I run to the restroom and look in the mirror. My hair is crazy,

My husband's GBM diagnosis had my head running in one of two directions: Convert husband to veganism and police all meal choices, not even a whiff of things like smoked/cured meats or red meat, and kick simple carbs and alcohol to the curb. Allow the man to eat/drink whatever he wants. I don't know if there is a right answer. I don't know if things can be defined so starkly. Is the horse out of the barn when it comes to eating healthy? I looked at the literature, and unsurpri

All neurologists, I imagine, have a favorite lobe. Mine is the frontal lobe. Let me explain why. Athena sprang fully formed from Zeus’s forehead. Obviously this means she erupted from his frontal lobe, that’s what makes her the goddess of wisdom. Obviously. Anyways. While things are not neatly encoded in discrete brain regions in general, it’s still fair to say the frontal lobe houses much of what makes us human. All neurologists, I imagine, have heard the story of Phineas Ga

It's just us in an empty house. The rules are frayed cotton threads barely holding together the dance of each day.

What are gliomas? What is a GBM? I try to break down the basics of a disease process that seems anything but.

When I first shared the news with close family and friends, I should not have been surprised by the messages asking how they could help. I’ve been there before, when my father passed away from COVID six years ago. It is raw humanity, the desire to help. It is unalloyed goodness, something so pure and primal. Though selfishness seems to be in the forefront more often than not, especially when we look at the news, there are these moments that remind me at least that there are t

My husband and I listened to the Hamilton soundtrack ad nauseam during the peak of the pandemic. I cannot listen to it these days, not because I do not love the songs (I do). While we were indulging Hamilton, I had two out of three miscarriages. The songs, with their catchy rhythms and flawless harmonies, were inextricably linked with loss. But “The Room Where It Happens” persists as a favorite despite that association. This felt true especially looking back at the eve of my

At the time William the Bump decided it was time to make his presence known, our daughter was four. Why William became termed "The Bump" is something we'll get to later. Now, our daughter is four. Four and a half if you ask her. The half, those six additional months, of course are very important. Reaching that milestone came just days before William the Bump came to our doorstep. That half felt so fresh. But I’d venture a guess that four and a half years are not nearly enoug

William was a 5 cm mass sitting in my husband’s right frontal lobe. We met late at night under the harsh lights of the ER, separated by the desktop monitor and radiology viewing software. I was flustered from the drive over, and still shaking in the aftermath of witnessing my husband’s seizure. I looked at the screen closely as time skidded to a stop. I wanted to name him “Bill” after the antagonist in the Tarantino movies. Bill seemed too casual, too cool, too likeable. Will

Just a few short weeks ago, I split in two. It had been warm outside, not the suffocating heat of early summer, but heat tempered by the sun’s descent towards the horizon. My skin was still flecked with drops of water from our earlier swim, and they sparkled like tiny rhinestones. My daughter had already started to make her way inside the house, wrapped in her beach towel like a tiny burrito. My husband was standing at the pool’s edge, happy, freshly-shaved head glistening.