21

Tough crowd today in the green room! No eye contact, no smiles, no nods from the other patients or hangers about. It’s like everyone has cancer and is going through a brutal treatment or something. Or maybe it was the awful Tilly hat I have taken to wearing because it actually provides shade for my …

22

Today’s word of the day is “iatrogenesis.” It means medicine-caused illness. I stumbled across it reading a Jody Berland essay on Chronic Fatigue Syndrome this morning. She attributes it to Ivan Illich’s usage in his writings on medicine (for instance, this piece. But I suspect the term has a longer history worth looking up. In …

25

Back in graduate school, one of our cats (Ya-Ya) was acting out and attacking the other cat. Like all cats, he is pretty terrified of the vet. We took him anyway, and they suggested a pet psychologist. (You know where this is headed, right?) So the pet psychologist comes into the vet examination room, and …