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Moment of Truth

Nancy J. Rennert March 13, 2026 9 Comments

Twenty-five-year-old male, Type 1 diabetes with recent left-leg amputation, poor glucose control.   

Routine case, I figured. I was the senior endocrinologist at a community health center, teaching resident physicians and caring for medically underserved patients.

I had prepared a chair to my immediate right for the medical resident, Anna, so that by turning my head slightly away from my desktop computer I would be able to see her face clearly. Although she didn’t know it, I was deaf–and with one of my cochlear implants failing, I needed to lip-read to understand speech.

Silenced

Donna Lambers January 16, 2024 30 Comments

Editor’s Note: This piece was awarded an honorable mention in the Pulse writing contest, “On Being Different.”

As a maternal/fetal medicine specialist for twenty-four years, I’d always felt that speaking to my patients, peers and the hospital staff was one of my God-given talents. I’m very good at giving bad news to expectant parents about their fetal diagnosis—or I used to be.

All of that changed six years ago, when I had a thyroidectomy for thyroid cancer. During the surgery, both of my recurrent laryngeal nerves were paralyzed, and so both of my vocal cords are paralyzed.

A Duplexity of Maladies

Robin Kemper December 19, 2023 8 Comments

Editor’s Note: This piece was a finalist in the Pulse writing contest, “On Being Different.”

I have a body besieged by two chronic illnesses, namely multiple sclerosis (MS) and bipolar disorder. My health profile has been described as “abnormal,” but I’ve always resisted that term in favor of “atypical,” for my poor health renders me unusual but not inhuman.

Still, the truth is that I am essentially and profoundly sick. My imbalanced body frequently aches, hurts and falls, my labile mind races or crawls. While medications can ameliorate my symptoms, they cannot cure my illnesses.

My body betrayed me when I was on the cusp of adulthood.

Third Degree

Susan S. Turner September 23, 2016 12 Comments

Susan S. Turner

When I find a lump in my left breast I am stunned. I probably shouldn’t be surprised, but I’m immobilized. It takes me several days before I tell my partner, who has to push me into action. I get the referral from my doctor and schedule a mammogram. The radiology practice fits me into their schedule that same week, but I still have several days to sit with the unknown.

Finally the day of the appointment comes. I wait in the reception area for an hour before the X-ray technician calls my name. As we walk to the exam room, me in my usual long leg braces and aluminum forearm crutches, she is chatty and asks, “How did you get

labeled “disabled”

Amanda Banner March 27, 2015 2 Comments

Imagine

Linda Koebner November 8, 2013 18 Comments

Linda Koebner

“Her vitals are fine,” the nurse told Besarta’s mother during a rare visit to the family’s basement apartment in the Bronx.

Besarta’s mind is also fine–sharp and clear. She asked me to use her real name in this story.

Her twenty-five-year-old face is beautiful and flawless, despite the howls of frustration, rage and pain she directs at her family, at fate and especially at Friedreich’s ataxia, the disease that controls her.

When I come for our weekly visit, Besarta’s blue-green eyes smile at me from where she sits in her wheelchair. Then her head suddenly wobbles sideways. Her face smashes against the chair’s headrest–first the right side, then the left.

In Sickness and in Health

Larry Zaroff August 16, 2013 1 Comment

Larry Zaroff

Four months after having a knee replacement, I stumbled into the bathroom at three AM, not fully awake, hoping to urinate.

Losing my balance, I fell. The result was a compound fracture of my left leg–the one with the prosthetic knee.

Gazing at my shiny white kneecap, I lost all logic, all control. I simply cried.

At eighty, I was unprepared for this unexpected anatomy lesson: my twenty-nine years as a surgeon had simply not prepared me for viewing the inside of my own knee.

It felt like my life was over.

Fortunately my wife, Carolyn, a painter, four years younger than I, and without any orthopedic experience, took one look, said little, but acted.

She wrapped my naked bones in a clean

A TAB No More

Sandra Shea July 26, 2013 No Comments

Sandra Shea

I thought of Peter when I lost my TAB status.

I lost it on vacation. These things happen. Suddenly, one Friday night in Florida, I was no longer a TAB. Shouldn’t have been too surprised, I guess.

But I didn’t expect it would involve a chicken.

I should explain.

I’m a medical educator: I have a PhD in experimental psychology/neuroscience, and I teach first-year medical students. In our curriculum, the students work through patient cases that are grouped by organ system. At the end of each case, we have a wrap-up in which we highlight the case’s diagnostic features and answer any student questions. Most of these discussions are faculty-led, but occasionally they’re run by

One Hundred Wiser

Anne K. Merritt April 22, 2011 No Comments

Anne K. Merritt

I gather my belongings: stained white coat, stethoscope, pen light, black ballpoint. I stuff the last two granola bars into my canvas bag. I glance at the clock on the microwave, which is three minutes fast.

Twenty-two minutes until my shift begins. One minute before I will lock the door to my apartment.

Precision is critical: ER shifts change fast and blend together, from late nights to early mornings to mid-afternoons. Suns set and rise, moons disappear then burst again into full spheres of light. But the rhythm remains fixed.

I gulp the last ounces of water and grab my keys just as the clock digits change.

Last week, I reached and surpassed my hundredth shift as a resident physician in the

Recovery Room

Warren Holleman April 1, 2011 No Comments

Warren Holleman

We’re sitting in a circle: seven women and me. Most are in their thirties and forties, and in their second, third or fourth month of sobriety. They look professional in the suits they’ve assembled from the donations closet of our inner-city recovery center.

I start things off by reminding everyone that this is the last day of the group. The last hour, in fact.

All eyes turn to Dorothy.

Dorothy is a proud woman, tall and tough and strong. And a former track and field star, although now she’s wheelchair-bound.

She speaks in a deep, husky, monotone punctuated occasionally by dramatic earthquakes–otherwise known as spastic tremors. But in all this time, she’s avoided talking about herself, fueling the suspicion that she’s hiding something

Touched

Karen Myers June 19, 2009 No Comments

Karen Myers

“I can feel the life force leaving me,” Mike says as he massages my legs with his rough, careful hands. He doesn’t use oil or lotion like the other massage therapists. Just his sticky, Marlboro-scented fingers. I lie in my underwear beneath a green sheet. My bony shoulder blades and crooked spine press into the table, having long since lost their cushion of muscle.

“We’re getting older,” Mike says, even though we’ve barely reached forty. “Maybe that’s why we’re so afraid. We don’t have the energy to fight like we used to.”

Mike’s eyes bulge like a bullfrog’s. When I first knew him, I found them a bit frightening. His voice is raspy and deep. He has a fading tattoo on his left

To My Left

Anne Herbert June 5, 2009 No Comments

Anne Herbert

I walk down the airplane aisle, scanning the rows. My eyes finally fall on 15F. My seat.

My nightmare.

This window seat means only one thing to me: someone to my left. A man, to be exact–middle-aged, reading the New York Times and snacking on a bag of peanuts. He doesn’t notice as I shove my purse under the seat and sit down. My only thoughts are of blending in–with the other passengers, with the chair, with the plane itself. Anything.

My objective on this five-hour flight is simple and clear. It’s the same one that I cling to almost every second of every day: to keep my left side hidden from the world.

Everyone has a good side–a more photogenic side, a certain way

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Tag: disability

Moment of Truth

Silenced

A Duplexity of Maladies

Third Degree

labeled “disabled”

Imagine

In Sickness and in Health

A TAB No More

One Hundred Wiser

Recovery Room

Touched

To My Left

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