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

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,

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