Evey: “You did this to me? You cut my hair, you tortured me … you tortured me!”
V: “You said you wanted to live without fear. I wish there was an easier way, but there wasn’t.”
– V For Vendetta
A month ago I logged into my medical record to check the results of a PET scan part of a neurologic workup my oncologist ordered. I had called his office about the results, but as the end …
So I am still here. I live to fight another day.
On December 17th, 2013, while in her last year of psychiatry residency at UCLA, Dr. Elana Miller was diagnosed with stage IV acute lymphoblastic lymphoma. Below is a photo essay of her journey.
December 18, 2013:
December 22, 2013:
January 5, 2014:
February 24, 2014:
Read more…
These stunning photos take you on a physician’s cancer journey
As many of you picked up from the tone of my last article, I am feeling much, much better. As more time has passed from the disasters of six weeks ago when I lost my relationship and home (making me feel more physically ill than I had felt this entire time), my body has finally had a chance to recover. I also have benefitted from a …
8 ways to better support someone dealing with cancer
Recently, in front of my family, friends, colleagues, and teachers, I accepted my diploma during the graduation ceremony for the UCLA psychiatry residency program.
While it wasn’t my real diploma — it’s been months since I’ve been able to work, so when I’m better I need to go back and finish some requirements — my residency program coordinator put together an awesome fake diploma so I would have something to pick …
Learning about human nature after a cancer diagnosis
From the beginning, there were so many signs that my cancer didn’t have a chance.
First, there was the rock-hard lymph node above my collarbone that disappeared with one night of steroids, even before I started chemotherapy.
Then, there was the chest x-ray done only a few days after starting my first round of chemo. It’s not pretty, and you can see that the …
My cancer has been knocked into oblivion
I feel …
Much better than I did after my last chemo cycle.
I feel tired, but not bad.
I feel really glad that using a smaller needle for the lumbar punctures spared me the headache.
I feel thrilled to have a port and have that PICC line out. There’s nothing like having medical tubes dangling out of your arm to make you feel extremely cancery. Plus, with the port buried under my skin, water …
I was recently readmitted to the hospital for my second round of chemotherapy.
I’m doing a regimen called Hyper-CVAD, which involves four rounds of two alternating cycles of treatment, for a total of eight rounds of chemo.
For my first cycle I got cyclophosphamide, doxyrubicin, and vincristine, along with an intrathecal injection of a drug whose name I’ve since forgotten. This round I’m getting intravenous methotrexate and cytarabine and TWO (insert frowny …
When undergoing chemotherapy, savor the small victories
When I was first diagnosed with cancer several weeks ago, I didn’t have much time to think. I was just trying to survive after getting punch to the gut after punch to the gut of bad news.
First I went to the ER thinking I had pneumonia, and was told that no, I had cancer. Then I was told instead of it being a more common, more …
Thoughts after being diagnosed with cancer
I recently wrote about how our world is ruled by love, and circumstances conspired to show me just how true that really is.
Love is when I go to the ER at UCLA, where I work, for a cough and feeling that “something isn’t right,” and even though my complaints are mild, I’m brought right in and treated respectfully.
Love is when the chest x-ray comes …
My cancer shows how our world is ruled by love
Before medical school I worked in a research lab investigating the relationship between stress and memory. As a research assistant, I dutifully administered memory test and collected saliva samples to test for cortisol levels.
My boss sent the data to her statistician for analysis, and was thrilled to find that despite the lack of connection between most of the variables of stress and memory studied, there was one positive finding — a …
Evidence-based medicine and the limitations of research
As a psychiatrist who is passionate about integrative mental health treatments, I was excited to spend five days recently in St. Petersburg, Florida for the annual conference of the American Board of Integrative and Holistic Medicine.
At the conference, I learned that even more than I previously realized, our ecosystem and environment have a profound effect on our happiness and wellness, and can either give us easy access to good food …
Should we consider an integrative psychiatry model?
It seems to be trendy these days to say we’re all overmedicated. People say we swallow a pill to try to escape any fleeting negative feeling, or that we throw them at our kids for any bad behavior. To be honest, there are times I agree.
However, sometimes people take the anti-medication thing way, way too far. They say antidepressants are a conspiracy of the drug companies to make us all …
How to know whether antidepressants will help
Sometimes I’m surprised I wasn’t born with gills.
It’s like I was meant to spend more time in water than on land. I didn’t discover this until I was thirteen or so, when I started high school and had to join a sports team because of a school requirement. I arbitrarily chose water polo, because it was a fall sport. I sucked at …
7 life lessons I learned from surfing
When I was in middle school, I went to Lake Tahoe with my best friend on a ski trip. I had only been skiing a few times before, and even though my friend was only twelve, she was already a talented and experienced skier.
She was patient with me, but I became increasingly frustrated as I had trouble going down even the most basic runs without falling. At one point, after falling …
Antidepressants and the placebo effect
As a psychiatry resident with both a personal interest in meditation and a professional interest in integrating eastern mindfulness practices into western psychiatry, I like to keep up with the latest research on the subject. And I can’t help but notice how trendy the topic has become.
My last literature search turned up articles like “Pilot randomized trial on mindfulness training for smoking in young adult binge drinkers,” “Mindfulness-based program for …
Why mindfulness has a place in psychiatry
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