Nonfiction Issue #12: Diagnosis December 31st, 2022 Self-Portrait as a Suicide Attempt by Joanna Acevedo e never said: You will not get better. He would never say that. My psychiatrist was, and always will be, a saint. It was no coincidence that his first name was Angel. But the prognosis was the same. What I have—Ultra Rapid Cycle Bipolar 1—doesn’t improve with time. Actually, it’s a progressive illness, and it continues to ravage its sufferers as ...
Read MoreNonfiction Issue #12: Diagnosis December 31st, 2022 I Was Really Scared Last Night by Karen Buley was sitting here reading my book and everyone left, and I can’t find the baby!” Panic permeated my eighty-eight-year-old mother’s words when she called one Sunday evening in July 2020. “They’re gone.” A fierce burn seized my belly as I imagined my mother, alone in her independent living apartment, one hundred twenty miles away. “They were there last week,” I reminded ...
Read MoreNonfiction Issue #12: Diagnosis December 31st, 2022 You Don't Know How It Feels by Scott Martin o borrow a line from You Don’t Know How It Feels by Tom Petty, “I woke up in between a memory and a dream.” The last thing I remember is the anxious look on my mom’s face as she watched my stepfather drive me to the ER. Somewhere beneath the nausea and fatigue was the urge to tell her everything ...
Read MoreNonfiction Issue #12: Diagnosis December 31st, 2022 It's Not the Final Answer by Wendy Kennar fter a year and a half of talking with one doctor after another, it was Dr. W, a rheumatologist, who explained my mystery illness. “It’s an autoimmune disease called Undifferentiated Connective Tissue Disease. UCTD,” he told us. My husband and I had no idea what that meant except for one thing. My gut instinct told me that not knowing those letters, not ...
Read MoreNonfiction Issue #12: Diagnosis December 31st, 2022 A Nightmare Before Christmas: Shared Decisions in the ER by Tyler Jorgensen went for pizza and beer with some friends tonight after work. My wife and kids came too. The pizza came wood-fired from a food truck and the beer cold and crisp from a micro-brew tap and labeled Honey Blonde Ale. The kids ran around the brewery grounds in the rain inventing “zombie tag” games and ...
Read MoreNonfiction Issue #12: Diagnosis December 31st, 2022 Merry Migraines by Erin Darrow hristmas lights blink on and off, on and off, sparkling and winking merrily in tune with the Carol of the Bells. Ding, dong, ding, dong. Sharp pine scent underlaced with cinnamon and cloves. Winter and snowflaked pine branches and holly jolly. Multi-colored spots blink in my eyes as if someone has taken my photograph. Splotchy rainbow after-images stick to my closed eyelids. They won't go away ...
Read MoreNonfiction Issue #12: Diagnosis December 31st, 2022 Harvey Is Inside My Head by Deborah Meltvedt have a cat inside my head. I like to think they found him on the CT scan of my brain and lungs but it turns out he was such a part of my insides that nobody batted an eye. That CAT scans don’t scan cats. Harvey was just there in the lurching. A cartoon firing from brain to hand, ...
Read MoreNonfiction Issue #12: Diagnosis December 31st, 2022 NF Title by Author Name onfiction textAuthor Name author bio here.
Read MoreNonfiction Summer Supplement 2022 September 26th, 2022 University of Iowa International Writing Program Africa Cohort All in the Detail by Franka-Maria Andoh y young doctor, Joel, opens the door to his consulting room. “Hello ma’am,” he says to me. Above his mask, I notice that his eyes are tired and, being very fond of him, I worry. I know he is working back-to-back shifts in two hospitals, so to cheer him up I say, “I can see from ...
Read MoreNonfiction Summer Supplement 2022 September 26th, 2022 University of Iowa International Writing Program Africa Cohort Drugs vs. Medicine by Araba Ofori-Acquah took drugs to heal the pain of the drugs they prescribed me to heal the pain, and to catch the bits of crazy the prescribed drugs couldn’t quite reach. That’s when I learned that, really, anything can be a drug. It’s less about the thing itself and more about how you use—or abuse—it. My skin fizzled as I ...
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