Cross-publishing here for those without a substack subscription (Which is free)…
Happy almost December! Hope you had a great Thanksgiving and are enjoying the in-between holiday time. Here’s what’s been going on in my neck of the woods….
Spanish Stuffed Peppers – An original recipe from The Blog that Ate Manhattan. With a little help from my friends (and family)…
Where I Ate
Valley Green Inn in the Wissahickon Valley. The perfect location for a lovely Thanksgiving luncheon, capped off with a walk on Forbidden Drive, one of my favorite places in the whole world.
White Dog Cafe in West Philly. Founded in 1983 by social activist Judy Wicks, and still going strong today, with several locations around the Philly area. The White Dog was among the very first farm-to-table restaurants in America, and continues to support local farmers, food artisans and brewers with a focus on sustainability and ethical, chemical and pesticide-free practices. Located in three connected Victorian townhouses, the original White Dog is as quirky and charming as ever, though this old timer misses the attached shop, which has been replaced by more dining space. We thoroughly enjoyed our Kennett Square mushroom omelets and Pork Belly Benedict made with Pork Belly from Ironstone Creamery in Pottstown, as well as the uninterrupted, prolonged sit our waitperson allowed us with our dear friends Amy and Noel.
Trattoria Moma in Mount Airy, Philly. Well, technically, we ordered in with my dear friend and hairdresser Wendy at her awesomely remodeled apartment after she cut and colored my hair at her salon. Moma made us delicious pasta, which we washed down with a surprisingly good and affordable red called The Banished from 19 Crimes Wines (great marketing…) and followed with two long and rousing game of Rummikub. Always love seeing Wendy (and beating her at Rumikub…)
Charles Pan-Fried Chicken. Charles Gabriel, famous for his pan-fried, old-school method of frying chicken at his Harlem-based restaurant, has morphed his business post-pandemic to carry-out only and graced us with his presence (and his chicken) here on the Upper West Side. The chicken is delicious, crispy on the outside and incredibly moist inside. The mac and cheese is among the best I’ve tasted. Sadly, the coleslaw was off the menu the night we ordered. We’ll be getting carry-out again, I’m sure!
What I’m Learning
Mostly everything on Amazon is now an ad. It’s true. Ads now comprise most of what your search results retrieve on Amazon. Personalized recommendations, sections showing what other have bought who searched for your item or what customers who viewed this item also viewed – Gone. It’s a new income strategy for retailers. But it does not drive sales of products, it just brings in revenue from ad sales. And worse – other online retailers are copying Amazon. Buyer (and Shopper) beware!
What I Saw
Matisse in the 1930s – At the Phila Museum of Art. Saw it with my dear artist friend Amy Cohen – I highly recommend bringing an artist along when viewing art! The exhibit was beautiful. Especially interesting were the studies and preliminary work to the mural Matisee painted at the Barnes Estate, and which now lives just across the Parkway.
Frank Gehry’s renovation of the Phila Museum of Art is quietly spectacular. One (major) complaint. They moved Jacob Epsteins sculpture “Social Consciousness”, from the back steps of the museum to the U of Penn campus. The statues were the starting point of “Only Connect”, Amy’s performance piece that showed at the Museum (and for which I was proud to provide a voice over for one of the segments). We’ve vowed to go visit the piece at Penn in the near future
Photo from Association for Public Art
What I’m Craving
These apricots, grown in California and touted by Sally Schmitt and Ruth Reichl as THE best apricots in the world.
What I’ve been watching, listening to and reading
Irene Cara Acapella – Can’t stop listening to this bare vocal version of What a Feeling from Voceaux , who creates acapella versions of iconic live musical performances. RIP Irene..
Somebody Feed Phil visits Philadelphia! A fabulous episode that starts off (where else?) at the Reading Terminal and ends up at Zahav, hitting hot spots new and old in South Philly, Fishtown, Roxborough (Go Dellessandro’s!), the Northeast and Olde City in between. Phil’s wife is from Philly’s suburbs (with an accent to match), so he’s got an insider’s take on the city. Here’s a list of where Phil went. I’ve been to a few. Looks like I’ve got a project when we move to Philly…
NPR How I Built This Podcast – Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company. OMG this guy is gonna’ actually rein in the outlandishly over-priced pharmaceutical market. Just shows you what good things can happen when billionaires use their wealth for good. Now if Cuban can just fend off those who will try to stop him… A must listen for everyone. And while you’re at it, check out Mark’s site Cost Plus to see if there are cost savings to be had for your prescriptions.
The Best Chef in the World. A brief documentary about Sally Schmitt, original owner and chef at the French Laundry, long before there was Thomas Keller. She and her husband Don raised 5 kids while starting the iconic farm to table restaurant long before that phrase was even coined, cooking simply, locally and ethically, complemented by local wines. Sally recently left us, but fortunately left behind her memoir, Six California Kitchens, complete with recipes and sage cooking advice. In future blog posts, I’ll be sharing some of it what I’ve learned from reading it.
A SONNET FOR THE BOSS I thought he would never age. He seemed a different breed, Gliding effortlessly, tirelessly across the stage. Born to run, indeed.
A bard whose biceps and pectoralis strained The seams of a sweat-soaked, clinging black T-Shirt, He pulled across a low-slung electric guitar again and again, Stirring heart, mind and groin in concert.
Now he stands alone on bare stage straining To pull memories from an acoustic held high against a softened gut, Black T shirt hung loose, creped skin draped o’er biceps waning His voice a gravel road bumping ‘oer long worn ruts.
Sans drum and sax and bass, the words, like new, emerge again He stirs us now with poetry, rewrit with wisdom’s pen
-Margaret Polaneczky
That’s it, folks! Have a great last day of November !
I’m often asked to recommend recipes for Thanksgiving, so here’s a few suggestions for you all.
I’ve never actually cooked a turkey, so this will just be sides and desserts. To be honest, that’s pretty much are all I care to eat at Thanksgiving dinner anyway.
Noticeably missing from this list are recipes for cranberry sauce (I use the one on the cranberry bag – no need to mess with perfection), mashed potatoes (there is no recipe, it’s instinctual if you’re Patsy’s daughter), and stuffing (I’ve never made it, that gets assigned to someone else).
Yellow Squash and Almond Saute – You can up the olive oil and add more grated cheese if you like – this recipe has as many variations as there are cooks!
Summer Corn Pudding – a great way to use that summer corn in your freezer. If you substitute corn flour for flour, it can be a delicious and satisfying alternative to stuffing for your gluten-sensitive guests
My poem entitled “Then and Now”, written at the height of the Covid Pandemic, has been published in Ascensus, the Weill Cornell Medicine Journal of the Humanities. It’s an in-house publication, started in 2013 and run by medical students to showcase the humanities at our medical school.
I was privileged to give a reading of my poem at the Ascensus 11th edition launch reception last evening. It was a joy to be with so many artistically minded medical colleagues, whose works ranged from poetry to prose, photography, painting and music. A special shout out to Courtney Lee for her moving poem “Hoarder”, to Koianka Tencheva, whose poem “My Dowry” brought tears to my eyes and to med student J Lind, whose emotional song lyrics were backed by some serious geetar playing. (You can find more on Spotify…)
Congrats to the Ascensus editorial team for another great edition of this wonderful journal, and to all my colleagues on their submissions.
THEN AND NOW
Then
We lived in sweet, willful ignorance.
Nanoscopic particles bent on our destruction existed, surely,
But attacked predictably, and only once a year
Allowing us to plan and fortify
With protein shields delivered through ethanol swabbed skin.
Few fell
But those who did
Passed within the soft embrace of love
Untainted by fear.
Then
We lived and moved in shared spaces
Breathing the same air,
Voicing the same songs,
Touching without fear,
Hands grasping hands,
Arms linking arms,
Lips grazing lips, cheeks, foreheads.
Then
We blithely squeezed together in metal tubes beneath the streets,
Lined up tightly in shared anticipation,
Marched shoulder to shoulder on grand boulevards,
Brushed past one another in narrow halls and passages and
Mingled sweat and smell in crowded theaters and packed arenas.
Now
We live in isolation,
Faces masked and drawn,
Warily walking along emptied streets
Past boarded stores and vacant food halls.
We line up uneasily,
Pass gingerly,
Stand separately
Love guiltily.
Now
We live and move in fear
Of this new predator
And of one another.
Those among us who fall
(And there are many)
Do so alone
Or at best,
Watched from afar by faces on blue lit screens,
Witnessed by swathed strangers
Who stroke limp arms through gloved hands
And whisper words of comfort
That pass between layers of three-ply polymer
And ricochet off polyurethane shields.
Margaret Polaneczky 11/19/20
Recognizing the risks inherent in COVID-19 infection can be significant, while those identified to date for its vaccine appear to be low, they have not advised against vaccination during pregnancy. However, its important to note that have they not specifically approved the vaccine for use in pregnancy. That’s because we have only limited animal and human data on use of the COVID-19 vaccine during pregnancy or breastfeeding.
This is incredibly frustrating to those of us who care from women of reproductive age. Some have gone so far as to call it a massive oversight in the research and regulatory process around COVID-19 vaccines. Indeed, it makes no sense, for a number of reasons –
There is nothing in the vaccine that raises concerns about fertility or poses excess risk to a pregnant woman or her fetus. Data from studies in rats has found no adverse effects of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine pregnant females or their offspring.
We have years of experience safely providing vaccination to millions of women during pregnancy. (Think Flu vaccine, for one.) Even those vaccines designated as unsafe in pregnancy have not been found to cause excess maternal or neonatal morbidity or mortality when accidentally given.
Finally, maternal vaccination is an effective and efficient way to provide immunity to newborns at birth and throughout breastfeeding.
Still, one must acknowledge that this fast-track vaccine process is on a timeline that may make it less than perfect, and the FDA has done a great job of moving the vaccine forward with little compromise of safety. I can totally understand why they would stop short of recommending the Covid-19 vaccine, and am grateful that at least for now, they have not prohibited its use during pregnancy and breastfeeding.
What We Know about Pfizer’s Covid-19 Vaccine and Pregnancy
We do not know yet whether or not Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine crosses into the placenta to the fetus and do not yet have developmental and reproductive toxicity (DART) data from animal studies on Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine.These results are expected mid December. We now have animal data on the Moderna Vaccine use in pregnant rats, and no adverse effects on pregnancy was found. The theoretical risk from this vaccine is extremely low.
There is nothing about Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine’s contents, mechanism of action or manufacturing process that suggests it will impact fertility or be harmful in pregnancy.Here’s how it works. It is not a live or even attenuated whole virus vaccine. It is a piece of manufactured messenger RNA (mRNA) that gets taken up into the recipient’s muscle cells. These cells read the message and manufacture a protein identical to the spike protein on the COVID-19 virus. The body then sees that protein as foreign and makes antibodies to it. (Pretty cool, huh?…) The mRNA is degraded rapidly, and does not enter the nucleus of a cell, so it has no potential for harm once its target protein is made.
Twenty three pregnancies have occurred during the Pfizer COVID19 vaccine trial, 12 in the vaccine group and 11 in the placebo group. We should have outcome data within a year, though we do know that two pregnant women in the placebo group had miscarriages.
So. You’re Pregnant. Should you get the COVID-19 vaccine or not?
Talk to your doctor. Together, you’ll need to weight your risks of covid-19 infection against the as yet unknown, but likely low risks of the vaccine in pregnancy. Here are the most obvious scenarios and my thoughts about them. If you have others, feel free to comment.
If you are a pregnant front line healthcare worker, you’re going to be first in line for the vaccine, and may opt to get it as soon as it’s offered to you, especially if you also have co-morbidities that increase your risk for severe Covid-19 infection. On the other hand, assuming you have adequate PPE and use it consistently, your risk of acquiring COVID-19 on the job is low. Animal reproductive toxicity data is just a few weeks away and you may just want to wait for that data before accepting the vaccine. But please, use PPE properly and consistently, never ever take your mask off when around others outside the home, and practice social distancing both in and outside of the workplace. Data are beginning to suggest that most covid infections among healthcare workers at this point in the pandemic are acquired in the community or from household members, and not from exposure to infected patients.
If you are a pregnant essential worker, you may opt to get the vaccine if your job exposes you to risk of Covid-19 infection, especially if you work in sub-optimal conditions in regards to PPE or social distancing. That I even wrote that makes me ashamed – no one whose job places them at risk of infection should be working in anything less than optimal conditions. But I’m not naive, so if you’re at risk on the job and pregnant, and want the vaccine, by all means you should be able to get it. On the other hand, you may want to wait for further data. Talk it through with your obstetrician to make the choice that seems best for you in your circumstances.
If you’re pregnant and otherwise healthy and working from home in an isolating household, with no plans to do otherwise during your pregnancy, your risk for Covid-19 infection is low. You’re not going to be top of the list for the vaccine anyway, so it’s likely we will have reproductive toxicity data by the time the vaccine is offered to you. That will make your choice much more informed, easier to make and certainly less stressful. Please continue to isolate as much as possible, wear your mask and practice social distancing whenever you venture outside the home.
If you’re pregnant and your main COVID-19 risk is living with someone who is a healthcare or other front line worker, the choice is obvious. If they are willing to do so, ask your partner or housemate to get vaccinated as soon as possible. It protects not just them, but you and your unborn child.
If you are pregnant and also in a high risk group for severe Covid-19 infection, such as obesity or diabetes, you may want to seriously consider getting the vaccine when it’s offered to you. If you are not an essential worker, you probably won’t have access to the vaccine until after the reproductive toxicity data is released. Assuming it’s reassuring, there will be even fewer arguments to make against vaccination.
If you’re considering pregnancy. This is easy. Get the vaccine as soon as its made available to you. Remember it’s two doses 21 days apart, so allow yourself time to complete the vaccine series before you become pregnant.
Bottom Line
The Covid-19 vaccine is here. Though we do not have definitive safety data in pregnancy, it’s going to be available to pregnant women. It’s up to you whether or not you’ll accept the vaccine. Discuss the risks and benefits of vaccination vs, your own risk for Covid-19 infection and make the choice that’s right for you.
Do you think whoever named the cauliflower plant knew that one day we would evolve into overweight, carbohydrate-overloaded, gluten-intolerant creatures, who, in searching for a suitable lo-carb substitute would find their holy grail in that crucifer whose name is homonymous with the ground product of the very thing we both crave and shun?
Think cauliFLOUR.
Then go grind up a head of cauliflower in the food processor (or be lazy like me and buy Trader Joes riced cauliflower), steam or microwave it for 10 minutes, strain out the liquid in a tea towel, pour into a large bowl and add two egg whites, 1/4 cup hemp or flax seeds, 1/2 low fat grated cheese (Trader Jose’s Lite Mexican Blend works perfectly) and a tbsp of minced fresh herbs (I used thyme, rosemary, basil and oregano). Spread out onto an 8 x12 inch rectangle on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Bake it in a 450 degree oven for 15-20 minutes, toss a little more cheese atop and bake 5-10 mins more and Voila! You’ve got a delicious, healthy, low calorie, if somewhat floppy breadstick. I cut mine using a pizza cutter while still warm, and got 32 cracker size pieces at 25 calories apiece. (If you want yours crisper, after cutting them, turn the oven off and put them right back in for 1-2 hours to crisp up as the oven cools down.)
I served these tonight to accompany Cream of Mushroom Soup. The flavors complemented each other well.
It’s deja vu all over again, as the current administration, borrowing a never-implemented move from the Reagan administration, attempts to gag physicians who provide reproductive care to women.
New proposed regs would forbid Title X funded providers from freely providing information about abortion to their patients, limiting such conversation to the provision of a list of names to women who have already decided to have an abortion.
Given that close to 50% of pregnancies in the United States are unplanned and that a significant proportion of women with unplanned pregnancy are unsure what they will do at the time of diagnosis or presentation to their doctor, the ruling is effectively a gag rule for any encounter around unplanned pregnancy. Or a planned pregnancy that goes wrong. Or that occurs in a woman with medical issues placing her health in danger during pregnancy. Or anytime when a pregnant woman is unsure what she wants to do regarding her pregnancy.
There’s more to the ruling that just the gag, much of it targeting Planned Parenthood, which provides reproductive health services to 41% of Title X clients.
By imposing extensive physical and financial separation requirements, the proposed rule effectively excludes from Title X any safety-net health center that provides abortion using non-federal funds. Specifically, Title X-funded entities would have to maintain separate accounting records, physical spaces (such as waiting and exam rooms, entrances, and exits), workstations, phone numbers, email addresses, staff, patient health records, educational programs, and signs.
The Ruling also lowers the bar and redefines family planning to allow Title X Funds to flow to programs that don’t actually offer medically approved contraception, but instead focus only on fertility awareness (rhythm), adoption or abstinence.
If you, as I do, oppose the proposed Title X changes, then I urge you to submit a formal comment and make your voice heard.
You’ll be joining the AMA, AAP, ACOG and ACP and almost 600 bipartisan elected officials in opposing this attempt to limit the free flow of healthcare information to women seeking to make choices among legal medical options. If you’re not great with words, head over to PRH Website for some more freely given text.
Here’s the comment I submitted today. Feel free to share, copy and paste.
I am writing you at this time to express my strong opposition to the proposed changes to Title X funding rules, which would limit Title X-funded providers in dispensing information or referrals for abortion services.
The proposed rule effectively gags both health care providers and their patients, limiting free speech within the patient-provider relationship.
Many, many women at the time of pregnancy diagnosis are unsure of their plans for that pregnancy, and wish to discuss their options with their provider. Limiting abortion discussion and referrals to women who have already decided to have an abortion is tantamount to malpractice, as women who are unsure of their options are not provided by their clinician with the critical health information they need to make a choice between the legal options available to them.
As a practicing physician I vehemently oppose this attempt to dictate medical care. Abortion is a legal medical procedure, safer than carrying pregnancy to term when performed by qualified providers, and information about it must be freely available to women, who need unbiased, factually correct, evidence-based information to make the choices that are safest and best for themselves and their families.
The proposed regulations unfairly and unconscionably impacts low income women, who frequently have no other options for reproductive health care other than that provided by Title X providers. The proposed rule changes create a two tiered system of reproductive education and care – one for women of means, who are given the information and counseling they need to make decisions about their reproductive health, and the other for poor women, from whom information about legal, safe reproductive options is deliberately withheld. If the legislation has its intended impact, women will lose trusted providers such as Planned Parenthood, which currently provides care to 41% of Title X patients.
Finally, the government cannot, though its funding mechanisms, require physicians to deliberately withhold information about completely legal health care options from our patients. This violates our free speech, promotes unethical behavior and violates the patient-physician relationship.
Thought I’d share this one piece from my my choral concert last month. It’s one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever written – Mozart’s Ave Verum Corpus. It’s not perfect, but I think we actually did it justice.
Hope you enjoy listening to it as much as we enjoyed singing it.
(I sing with the Collegiate Singers of NYC, a community choir on the Upper West Side. We performed in concert with The Plymouth Choir on May 9th at the First Baptist Church on Broadway and 79th. A wonderful space with great acoustics. Check us out if you love to sing. No audition required, though we assume you can hold a tune and sing on pitch. This is for the joy of singing, and it’s a great group of people.)
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No Evidence of Disease (NED) is the phrase oncologists use to describe a patient in remission from cancer. It’s also the name of a rock band whose members are all gyn oncologists – surgeons who care for women with gynecologic cancers. And the name of the documentary about how that band is joining with women to raise awareness and increase funding for research into gynecologic cancer.
The film is a melding of the stories of these dedicated doctors and their patients, and the stories are both heartwarming and sobering. The filmmakers did a wonderful job of representing women from all aspects of our society and all parts of America, from New York City to Alaska. We also see the backbreaking hours their doctors spend taking care of them, and come to understand their dedication to helping women facedown, live their lives and in some cases, face death from gynecologic cancer. I found myself falling in love with every one of these docs and every one of their patients.
The Events, David Greig’s play about the aftermath of a violent event, set on a bare stage with two actors and a community choir – got a nice review in today’s NY Times.
This gutsy work by the Scottish dramatist David Greig, which opened on Thursday night at New York Theater Workshop, sets the restless pain of a mass-shooting survivor against the stolid, consoling presence of a community choir.
It’s a juxtaposition that evokes Greek tragedy, in which choruses of common humanity echoed and annotated the words of afflicted heroes. And the program for this production includes a note from its director, Ramin Gray, that speaks of the inspiration of the ancient Athenian theater, where “important issues were collectively considered by the community.”
I’ll be performing in the Events on February 25th with my chorus, The Collegiate Singers. We’ve been diligently rehearsing the music, but have no idea what it will feel like to actually be on stage for this emotionally charged play. I’m both scared and excited. And cannot wait!
I’m so excited to share that my chorus, the Collegiate Singers, will be singing on Feb 25, 2014 in the NY Theater Workshop production of David Greig’s play “The Events”, the play that won a First at the 2014 Edinburgh Fringe, and has been touring ever since.
The Events tells the story of Claire—an enthusiastic and engaged female priest who leads a choir in a community setting. Claire experiences something terrible: a young man she vaguely knew turns a gun on those who “aren’t from here” in a misguided attempt to make his mark on society. The Events is not a depiction of such terrible events, and the play is not filled with violent acts. It follows Claire’s attempt to understand how someone could do such an awful thing, and how this struggle leads her on a path that comes close to self-destruction. Ultimately, Claire finds her peace and retakes her place in society as the play offers a timely exploration of how communities respond to acts of unthinkable transgression. (Wexarts.org)
Each night of the performance features a different community choir singing the soundscape of the play.
The use of a choir became a key aspect of “The Events,” and a way to root each production to the community wherever it is performed. In the show, a woman plays the role of Claire and a male actor plays several other parts, including the killer. The only other cast member, as it were, is an actual choir that functions like a Greek chorus, alternately observing, singing, chanting or speaking scripted line. (NYTimes)
I have absolutely no idea what this experience will be like, either on stage or as an audience member. But if you’re up for taking a chance, and you’d like to come to the play, you can get tickets here – http://nytw.org.http://nytw.org. http://nytw.org.http://nytw.org.
My chorus is performing only on Feb 25th, but the show runs Feb4-Mar 22.
Here’s an event you didn’t see covered in the media because it doesn’t make headlines or stoke the fires of hatred that seem to be flaring across this globe of ours.
More than two hundred and fifty meals were served at Interfaith Community Thanksgiving in St. Paul’s Chapel on Thanksgiving Day November 27. The event was a joint effort of Trinity Wall Street; Park 51, an Islamic community center; Tamid: The Downtown Synagogue, which meets in St. Paul’s Chapel; and Lower Manhattan Community Church.
The Interfaith Group met again last week, and together its members designed and created the logo and button below as their mantra for an end to the divisive battles couched in religion that are driving a wedge between people of all faiths across the world.
The button’s logo is ambigious enough to invite questions and induce dialog. And that’s exactly what happened today when I saw Westina Matthews, a member of the Trinity Vestry, wearing her button. I asked, she shared their story and then gave me her button.
The Interfaith Group is doing more than stopping something. They’re starting something.
When it comes to the Court’s decision on contraception, I think I can be of service. For my five beautiful daughters, and the other one, I have used a cheerful heavy-gauge yarn, mixing strands of cashmere, alpaca, and barbed wire, to knit what I call a Crotch Cozy. When my girls wear their Crotch Cozies, they not only receive endless compliments in the locker room but sexual intercourse becomes impossible. Any additional form of birth control is unnecessary. Case closed!
A very funny read.
Unfortunately, there’s not much else funny about the Hobby Lobby. Read Jan Gunter, MD if you have any questions as to why its a bad ruling, not just for women, and not just for contraception.
Despite advances in breast cancer treatment, and ongoing proof that survival is just as good after breast conserving surgery as it is with mastectomy, more and more women are opting for mastectomy for earlier and earlier stage cancers, especially DCIS.
In a well written, insightful post, Dr Deanna Attai, president-elect of the American Society of Breast Surgeons, outlines both the arguments against mastectomy and why women might make a reasonable choice to have a mastectomy anyway.
What we see in our offices is a rational fear: Many women understand that the type of surgery does not determine their survival. While of utmost importance, survival is not the only thing that is important to women being treated for breast cancer. Women worry about having to repeat the whole process in another year or so if something new shows up on a mammogram or if a lump is felt. Women question the value of annual mammography for surveillance when their initial tumor was not picked up by a mammogram. Women have seen their family members and friends develop complications from radiation therapy and from attempts to perform additional surgery after radiation therapy. While women understand that a mastectomy is no guarantee that they will remain cancer-free, to many it is such a significant decrease in the rate of recurrence or new primary cancer that they feel it is an acceptable trade off for the complication rates that have been reported in patients who undergo a CPM with reconstruction.
I encourage you to read Dr Attai’s post – it goes a long way to informing both patients and their physicians about this agonizingly difficult decision that so many women face.
Lorie Novak – photographer, artist and fellow migraine sufferer – has created a painfully real portrait of what if looks and feels like to have a migraine. Her site, called 100 Migraines, is a collection of vivid self portraits taken while in the throes of a migraine.
I have chronic migraine syndrome, and currently have an average of ten to fifteen episodes a month. They began when I was eight years old. I grew up at a time when migraines were not considered a medical condition, as they are now, but an emotional one. As a child and adolescent, I was told I worked too hard, did too much, and was too stressed out. In other words, it was my fault. In my thirties, I read the essay “In Bed” by Joan Didion in which she gives voice to her migraine suffering through words. It was a life-changing moment. In 2009, approximately twenty-five years after reading “In Bed,” I began to photograph myself every time I have a migraine, and have amassed over 700 self-portraits. When I have a migraine, all I want to do is leave my body so I won’t feel the pain. If I am in a semifunctional state, my laptop is my escape—it allows me to ignore my body and, by photographing myself, see my body. I can express what I can’t articulate and make the pain visible.
If you’re wondering what it looks like to have a migraine, just compare these two pics of Lorie with
and without a headache.
I feel your pain, Lorie…
I encourage you to visit the site, which also includes a resource list and information for migraine sufferers.
It’s deja vu all over again, as the current administration, borrowing a never-implemented move from the 
