For the majority of his life, Matthew Biggs was the voice that gardeners trusted on a Friday afternoon. He was the one who would say “I’ll do that” when no one else on the panel wanted to answer the awkward question about a misbehaving rose or a dying tree. Six years after being diagnosed with bowel cancer, which he never attempted to conceal, he passed away on Thursday, May 21, at the age of 65. Looking back, it’s remarkable how little the illness altered his behavior. The grin persisted. Curiosity also increased. He simply incorporated the entire somber matter into…
Author: Michael Martinez
A certain type of news arrives softly and then keeps ringing. Dennis Locorriere’s death from kidney disease complications was announced in mid-May, but it didn’t make the front pages like the death of a younger celebrity might have. Most people under 50 probably couldn’t have named him at the age of 76. However, his voice was like furniture to anyone who grew up near a radio in the late 1970s; it was warm, comforting, and a little mischievous. Even though you didn’t know who it was, you knew it. His peculiar burden was always that. According to the band, the…
In tennis, three months is a long time. Long enough for a draw sheet to forget your name, for a ranking to drop, and for fans to begin filling in the blanks with their own responses. Emma Navarro was away for about that long this spring, and during that time, an odd thing occurred: a player who had said very little became the focus of a lot of conversation. It began, of all places, at home in late March. Navarro withdrew from the Credit One Charleston Open, which is owned by her family, has a stadium that her father assisted…
The first thing you notice about Brandt Snedeker’s story is how subtly it developed. There were no tearful announcements, dramatic press conferences, or farewell tours. After the Fortinet Challenge in September 2022, he just stopped playing, and most fans were unaware of the reason. That kind of silence typically indicates something serious for a former FedEx Cup champion and nine-time PGA Tour winner. It meant something practically unheard of for him. Manubrium joint instability is the clinical term for the condition, but it doesn’t adequately describe what was going on inside his chest. The joint, which is located at the…
It began with a seemingly insignificant thing, as these things frequently do. A baby is eating. an unexpected cough. Then, a panic that parents never forget. Sadie Robertson Huff has spoken on microphones for the majority of her adult life, first as the teenage face of Duck Dynasty and then as a podcast host with the kind of gentle Louisiana accent that makes people feel like family. However, she sounded different on a recent Whoa That’s Good episode. slower. Still uncooked. She explained that Kit, her 9-month-old daughter, had been choking. Not just once, but twice. The first incident, which…
The age of those seated in the NHS adult mental health services waiting rooms is the most obvious indication that something has changed. The surprise is no longer the grey-haired man leafing through a pamphlet. The 32-year-old woman next to him, wearing noise-canceling headphones and browsing through a saved Notes app full of questions she wants to ask, is becoming more and more surprising. For ten years, she has been considering this appointment in one way or another. That scene’s numbers are startling. Between 1998 and 2018, the number of diagnoses in the UK increased by 787%, and it hasn’t…
You’ll notice something subtle when you walk into any general practitioner’s office on a busy Tuesday afternoon. At the desk, people hesitate. When they pull out the prescription pad, they speak more quietly. Although it is now easier to talk about antidepressants than it was twenty years ago, the conversation that usually occurs later—often months later—is still spoken in fragments. The atmosphere has improved. It is no longer foggy. However, something else has become silent, something that patients find difficult to identify without looking at the ground. Physicians have long been aware of this. The literature is not brand-new. The…
The internet can’t seem to get enough of Matt Damon’s face. If you spend enough time scrolling through a cosmetic surgeon’s Instagram account, his name will appear, typically accompanied by a slow-motion side-by-side from 1998 next to a red carpet still from the previous spring. Depending on who you ask, the assessment can range from “obvious work” to “just a man who got more sleep and a better haircut.” It doesn’t feel quite right at either extreme. His upper eyelids are the subject of the most persistent theory. Recently, an oculoplastic surgeon from New Jersey uploaded a video showing viewers…