There’s a tale about a boy in Waycross. Near a canal, he struck a match, lit a piece of newspaper, and tossed it into the water. But when the burning paper touched the surface, it didn’t go out. The water burst into flames.
Where words fail, there is music.
Johnson & Johnson knew for decades that asbestos lurked in its Baby Powder.
Chad Walde believed in his work at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Then he got a rare brain cancer linked to radiation, and the government denied it had any responsibility.
On parenting a sick child.
When the author’s wife was dying, his best friend moved in.
The science on the link is clear, but the alcohol industry has worked hard to downplay it.
As a father succumbs to lung cancer, his son tries to recreate his personality in the form of a chatbot.
“The last time I ate real food, actually chewed and swallowed, was six years ago.”
There is no script for losing a spouse in your 30s.
On chemo.
Will Lacey was just a baby when doctors diagnosed a rare form of cancer and told his family there was only one end. Nobody then could imagine the journey ahead, from hospital rooms to board rooms, research labs to government offices, a furious race between hope and death.
David Roberts spent his life facing death in the mountains. Now he is facing a fatal prognosis.
Inside one woman’s often conflicted world.
“At 54, after 30 years of marriage and two of loneliness, I went online to find a man and found Dean.”
A three-part essay on love, loss, and what comes in between.
A personal and legal history of assisted suicide.
A father, his dying son, and the quest to make the most profound video game ever.
A doctor who helped pioneer Oregon’s Death With Dignity law receives his own terminal diagnosis.
Morcellation was supposed to make gynecological surgeries easier on women. Instead, is it killing them.
Personalized medicine may one day deliver routine medical miracles. But it wasn’t ready in time for Stephanie Lee.
A treatment for liver cancer gives the writer a fresh perspective on illness – and wellness.
How ESPN anchor Stuart Scott battled cancer.
With a brutal cancer prognosis, a woman learns to live on borrowed time.
Immune systems don’t make for clean narratives, even as we expect them to keep us pure.
A woman's life is complicated by a sick lover and a job playing Bigfoot.
"I wait for the woman to relax, watching for the instant when she begins to think: maybe there won’t be a monster after all. I can always tell when this thought arrives. First their posture goes soft. Then their expression changes from confused to relieved to disappointed. More than anything, the ambush is about waiting the customer out. I struggle to stay in character during these quiet moments; it’s tempting to consider my own life and worries, but when the time comes to attack, it will only be believable if I’ve been living with Bigfoot’s loneliness and desires for at least an hour."
