Dorothy Byrne, the longtime Head of News and Current Affairs at Channel 4, is a prime example of the type of public figure who discusses their illness almost casually, as an aside between larger stories. She has talked candidly about a body that has experienced more than most of her coworkers will ever know in interviews, columns, and the odd incisive Daily Mail article. Rheumatica polymyalgia. Giant cell arteritis. Surgical mesh and heart failure are related. Throughout it all, she has half-wryly described the steroids as both identity thieves and lifesavers. Sometime in the late 2000s, Byrne received a diagnosis…
Author: Jack Ward
Simon Rogan has been the subject of a quiet discussion that has nothing to do with his cuisine. It’s evident to anyone who has followed the Cumbrian chef over the past few years, whether through magazine spreads, interviews, or his sporadic appearances on the kind of food shows where he tends to look thoughtful rather than performative. He has a different appearance. Sharper around the jawline and slimmer overall. Once filled out at the shoulders, the chef’s whites now hang in a different way. The phrase “Simon Rogan weight loss” has crept into search trends, suggesting that people are looking…
When someone eventually escapes the crisis, an odd thing occurs. The deadline has passed. The ill parent either gets better or doesn’t. The divorce is filed. The project is shipped. They wake up on a Tuesday in a quiet kitchen and feel strangely flat instead of the relief they’d been promising themselves for months. It’s difficult to ignore how many high-functioning individuals characterize this as the uneasy feeling of a life that is, by all objective standards, at last functioning. It turns out that the body becomes accustomed to running hot. Strong chemicals like cortisol and adrenaline pulse through the…
There is a specific type of fatigue that is not detected by any laboratory test. After eight hours of sleep, you awaken prepared. There’s nothing wrong. The person next to you is kind, the apartment is quiet, and the bills are paid. Even so, something is still waiting for the other shoe to fall somewhere beneath your sternum. It’s difficult to ignore how frequently people these days talk about feeling both safe on paper and unsafe in real life. It turns out that contracts are not read by the nervous system. The fact that you signed the lease on a…
I recently learned from a pediatrician in a quiet neighborhood outside of Minneapolis that she can now almost exactly predict when a parent will bring in a child for what she refers to as “the ask.” It typically follows a report card, an incident on the playground, a period of insomnia, or a teacher’s casual remark. The parents take a seat, appear a little ashamed, and say something along the lines of, “I think we want to get him evaluated.” That sentence might have appeared two or three times a month ten years ago, she said. It happens a few…
I recently learned from a Brooklyn therapist who has been in practice since the late 1990s that over the previous five years, the length of the intake forms in her office has subtly doubled. A full page now asks about childhood disruptions, chronic stress, medical procedures, discrimination, grief, and even isolation during the pandemic, replacing the previous single checkbox for “significant life events.” “We’re not just treating symptoms anymore,” she replied. “We’re trying to understand the story underneath them.” That minor change in paperwork, which is insignificant on its own, is indicative of a more significant development occurring throughout the…
Growing up on a farm in Mechanicsville, Maryland, a small Southern town, Jerome Adams’s dream of one day addressing the nation about a once-in-a-century pandemic while standing at a White House podium in a Vice Admiral’s uniform would have seemed nearly unreal. When attempting to understand who Jerome Adams is, what he accomplished, and why his story defies easy categorization, it is important to keep in mind that distance, from a family farm in southern Maryland to the highest public health office in the United States. He received a Meyerhoff Scholarship, which is intended for minority students interested in science,…
It was not a dramatic picture. No somber lighting, no well-thought-out statement. It was just Mindy Cohn in a hospital bed, giving the camera a firm thumbs up while grinning. It was the kind of picture that stops you in the middle of scrolling—not because it’s frightening, but because of the intensity of it. This was a woman who had recently experienced a serious event, and the first thing she wanted everyone to see was that expression. adamant. Heat. Definitely her. After being absent for a month, Cohn returned to Instagram on April 19, 2026, and gave an explanation of…