goinggentleintothatgoodnight

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FAITH: Remembering Yvette Stewart-Robinson (January 15, 2021)

FAITH: Remembering Yvette Stewart-Robinson (January 15, 2021)

I remember Yvette, after I came to North Carolina, to help care for my terminally ill twin sister, asking me, “You’re not going to leave as soon as Deb dies, right?” I assured her that I would not and that I would be here for long as she needed or wanted me to be. The relief on her face was palpable. Yvette was struggling with hip pain when I got here. She chalked it up to years of nursing and…

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Memories of Mama (July 11, 2021)

Memories of Mama (July 11, 2021)

Eleven years ago today – July 11, 2021 – which was also a Sunday, the sometimes bizarre, always unpredictable behavior that Mama had been regularly exhibiting since the fall of 2008 reached its critical mass. The week before had been very stressful. Mama’s paranoia and anger were at full-tilt and she spent the week crescendoing out of control. I visited her every day at her apartment in the…

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Book Review: "You're a Miracle (And A Pain In The Ass)" by Mike McHargue

Book Review: “You’re a Miracle (And A Pain In The Ass)” by Mike McHargue

You’re a Miracle (and a Pain in the Ass): Understanding the Hidden Forces That Make You You by Mike McHargue My rating: 5 of 5 stars McHargue does a great job of connecting that overwhelmingly-complex network that makes up that 3-pound organ that sits in our skull to how we become who we are. We are all miracles and pains at the same time because as our brains develop – and continually change –…

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Book Review: The Great Influenza - John M. Barry

Book Review: The Great Influenza – John M. Barry

The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History by John M. Barry My rating: 5 of 5 stars A little over a century ago, a similar scenario like the one we’re seeing with COVID-19 in 2020 played out. The 1918 influenza pandemic lasted almost three years. It did not start in Spain (it’s often called the “Spanish flu”), but instead instead in a small, rural town in Kansas. It spread…

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Profiles in Dementia: George Thomas Seaver (1944 - 2020)

Profiles in Dementia: George Thomas Seaver (1944 – 2020)

Baseball Hall of Famer George Thomas Seaver was born in California in 1944. Although in high school, Seaver was a lettered basketball player, the pictcher’s mound in baseball was where he found his athletic groove.

As his career expanded into Major League Baseball, Seaver became known for performing both well on the field – earning the nickname “Tom Terrific” during his 20-year professional…

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The Complexity of Grief — It’s 5 O’Clock Somewhere Grief is not an event. Instead, it is a cumulative reservoir that is created with the first loss (death or otherwise) you experience in your life.

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Historical Perspective on Epidemics and Death in America

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Is COVID-19 (Novel Coronavirus) a Hoax?

Is COVID-19 (Novel Coronavirus) a Hoax?

Is COVID-19 (novel coronavirus) a hoax? Well, it depends, apparently, on…wait for it…not science, not facts, not critical thinking, but instead which polarized (and patently full of untruths) end of politics you’ve put your faith and trust in.

We’ve lost our minds in this country. You can fact check everything now (including the president) using the brain God gave you and the common sense that…

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Advance Directives and COVID-19

In a very unsettling development in the COVID-19 pandemic, the Washington Post has an article in its March 25, 2020 edition that reports that some hospital systems in the United States are considering imposing Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) orders on all patients who are admitted with the viral infection.

The implications of this for all of us are worth noting and talking about. If we have advance…

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Saying Goodbye in the Time of COVID-19

Life as we knew it has been upended by COVID-19. As I’ve thought and pondered a lot on the changes we see and the potential changes ahead, I see that there could be some very good results that come from this, as well as some very bad ones.

I scan the news headlines a couple of times a day, and then I leave it alone. A steady diet of all the confusion, the outright wrong information (often from…

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We Had Seasons in the Sun (Debra "Deb" Lynn Ross - February 29, 2020)

We Had Seasons in the Sun (Debra “Deb” Lynn Ross – February 29, 2020)

“This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but with a whimper.” “The Hollow Men” – T. S. Eliot

My fraternal twin sister, Deb, died of complications from liver failure at 7:49 a.m. EST on February 29, 2020. I am heartbroken writing this.

T.S. Eliot is one of my favorite poets, and although I love the depth of “The Wasteland” and the profundity of “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” “The…

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The Layperson's Guide to Hepatic Encephalopathy

The Layperson’s Guide to Hepatic Encephalopathy

One of the conditions that occurs with advanced liver disease caused by chronic alcohol abuse is hepatic encephalopathy. Hepatic encephalopathy is different from Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome, another condition associated with long-term alcohol abuse that is caused by a severe thiamine (B1) deficiency. However, the two conditions may coexist and lead to alcohol-related dementia. (more…)

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Mother's Day 2019

Mother’s Day 2019

My dearest Mama,

It’s hard to believe you’ve been gone almost seven years. At once, it feels like yesterday and forever. I miss you as much now

as I missed you the second God took your breath away as you hit the number of days He had written for you in His book before you were ever born.

The world was crazy and falling apart when you left. If you can imagine, it’s crazier and crumbling apart even…

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Limbic-Predominant Age-Related TDP-43 Encelopathy (LATE) Dementia Identified

Limbic-Predominant Age-Related TDP-43 Encelopathy (LATE) Dementia Identified

A new type of dementia has been identified. While it may look like Alzheimer’s disease, it differs in significant ways. Researchers suspect it’s even more prevalent than Alzheimer’s disease – and may be part of a mixed-dementia diagnosis – but that remains to be seen.

The new type of dementia is called limbic-predominant age-related TDP-43 encelopathy or LATE dementia. The symptoms of LATE…

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Remembering Mama

Today – or yesterday – since the dates on each of your birth certificates (the handwritten one and the official one) are different, you would be 90 years old. That’s hard for me to even fathom, almost as hard as it is for me to fathom that in August you’ll be gone seven years. 

Thinking of you being 90 reminds me of how you and Daddy used to joke about life and death. Daddy’d always say that he…

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Missing You

More than 20 years and more than 6 years, From left to right, You’ve been gone from me. Sometimes it feels like yesterday; sometimes it feels like forever. (more…)

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All We Are Is Dust In The Wind: Helen "Chrissy" Riddle (1957 - 2019)

All We Are Is Dust In The Wind: Helen “Chrissy” Riddle (1957 – 2019)

On Thursday, January 10, 2019, my sister (in my maternal biological family), Chris Riddle, was driving to work around 10 a.m. in Olathe, KS. Chris suffered a medical emergency that left her unconscious, and her SUV hit a car, then traveled forward through a fence into an icy cold pond.

By the time first responders got to the accident, the SUV was fully submerged. They pulled the SUV out, got…