fostering the humanistic practice of medicine publishing personal accounts of illness and healing encouraging health care advocacy

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fostering the humanistic practice of medicine publishing personal accounts of illness and healing encouraging health care advocacy

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deb y felio

I’ll Trade You

I will say you can have your silver linings. Keep them. Save them for when you need them and then see how wonderful they don’t feel. 

Understand what the price of one really is. Yes, I have learned to be grateful for the small, everyday mercies. And I really am, on most days. Yes, I know others have it much worse. Yes, maybe I am stronger, wiser, kinder. But actually I won’t ever know, will I?  Because there isn’t another me to compare it to. Yes, character, courage, all those things. But what if I would have been okay–and I really think I would have been–had I been left alone without all these opportunities to offer forgiveness, and courage and the brave smile, to show love to those who had hurt me and others, not to have borne witness to how cruel people can be to one another. Especially to children. 

I’m not so much angry, really, as tired of everyone thinking they have a silver lining to offer. We don’t hold them for others, and the price is significant. Like resilience, silver linings come after pain. And often a lot of it. Decisions–with no clear path–just whatever the gamble » Continue Reading.

I’ll Trade You Read More »

Waiting for the Answer

It’s tricky—the balance between deserving, needing, and entitled. Who gets the vaccine first? Who gets it last? What part of the decision is privilege. What part experimental.

I am a noncompromised age-qualifying mental health counselor who has worked remotely, from the confines of my home. I am not a high-risk-by-exposure candidate, unless I want to be. I have remained masked and distant throughout the pandemic. What are my response and responsibility to having an invitation to be at the front of the line?

Waiting for the Answer Read More »

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