Every morning before I open my eyes to the rest of the world, I convince myself this is the day I’m going to die. It has to be. Anyone who’s lived as crappy a life as I have is bound to be suffering from something that will fast track them to the pearly gates. But to get a better handle on my diminishing health, I need to diagnose everything that’s wrong with me, its severity, and compute exactly how long I have left to live. My last episode began with an innocuous pain on the inside of my cheek. By running the tip of my tongue over the affected area,…
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Blaschko Lines Blaschko's lines disease proves there's a little zebra in all of us
Nature has an interesting way of identifying animals in the wild. Lions have their manes, leopards have spots. Tigers and zebras have stripes. And apparently, so do people with Blaschko Lines. Blaschko Lines are common skin patterns that were first identified in 1901 by a German dermatologist named Alfred Blaschko. Over the course of years of examining thousands of patients, he often observed people who exhibited unusual patterns of dark stripes and swirls that encompassed their entire bodies. Some patterns were restricted to an arm or a leg. Other patients had stripes that ran from head to toe, beginning on their face, migrating to their chest and wrapping around their…
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I Don’t Feel as Good as I Look Trigeminal neuralgia, osteomyelitis, a fractured eye socket, leprosy, and salivary duct abscess... these are a few of my favorite things
When I was younger, I was indestructible. Or, at least I thought I was. All through my teens and twenties, I would routinely risk life and limb, cliff diving in Acapulco and driving at the speed of sound the wrong direction up one-way streets – all without a thought to the consequences if something were to go wrong. Old age has changed all that. And, I look that way too. Nowadays, before I even open my eyes in the morning, I run through a comprehensive physical checklist prior to swinging my feet out of bed – lower back: check. Right and left knees: check. Feet and ankles: check. Hands, wrists…