When a second doctor examines your scans and becomes silent for an extended period of time, a certain kind of dread takes hold. A woman in Philadelphia experienced this last year; she was sent home with pamphlets about good sleep hygiene after being informed that her chronic fatigue and back pain were caused by stress. A different doctor discovered late-stage kidney cancer months later. It turned out that the imaging that would have detected it early had never been ordered by the first physician. Most people are unaware of how common stories like hers are. Roughly twelve million Americans receive…
Author: Michael Martinez
Watching a woman piece together the most intimate moments of her childhood in a memoir, knowing that millions of people will read it on subway rides and in airport bookstores, is almost unsettling. That’s precisely what Jennie Garth has done. She is 54 years old, and her book, I Choose Me, challenges a choice she made thirty years ago in a way that the entertainment industry seldom permits its female employees to do. When she first entered the Beverly Hills, 90210 set, she was eighteen. According to her own account, she was emotionally in fairly good shape when she arrived.…
Ian Somerhalder’s face has an almost unfair quality. The majority of men who are getting close to 47 are coping with aging eyes, softening jawlines, and the general wear that comes with living for decades. Somerhalder, meanwhile, looks like he struck some kind of deal that the rest of us weren’t offered. It’s hard not to notice, and it’s that exact observation that has kept the plastic surgery conversation alive for years now. The rumors are not brand-new. Fans started paying closer attention somewhere between Season 2 and Season 3 of The Vampire Diaries, noticing that certain things — the…
On a weekday morning, the first thing you see when you enter the Upper Arlington location on Arlington Centre Boulevard is not a consultation desk or a surgical suite. It’s a coffee shop. A free one, nestled in a lobby that resembles a boutique hotel rather than a medical office, with two distinct waiting areas, natural light, and upstairs check-in. It’s a minor detail, but the true story often lies in the little things. Columbus Aesthetic & Plastic Surgery, or CAPS for short, has spent years cultivating a reputation that feels earned rather than marketed, something that is truly difficult…
In the corporate lexicon, there is a specific type of fatigue that lacks a clear term. Although it is typically close to overwork, it is not exactly overwork. It is not stress in the sense that the word is commonly used, which implies urgency and pressure. The particular exhaustion that results from carefully controlling not only what you do but also how you look while doing it for eight, nine, or ten hours a day is something more subdued and, in some respects, more comprehensive. Keep an eye on your tone. softening your speech. absorbing the annoyance of another person…
Imagine this. It’s Sunday night. The kids are finally, mercifully, asleep, the dishes are finished, the laundry is folded, and the inbox is silent. This is the moment you have been preparing for all week, by all accounts. You locate the blanket, prepare the tea, and open the book. Then, seemingly unaffected by any of this, your brain starts silently making a list of things you should probably do tomorrow, things you forgot to do, and a few conversations from last Tuesday that could have gone more smoothly. The body is in a horizontal position. The mind is somewhere else,…
Blood tests don’t detect a certain type of fatigue. It’s not the fatigue that follows a short night or a long day. It’s the kind that, after years of meticulously tailoring your tone, opinions, and laughter to fit the space you’ve just entered, settles somewhere behind your eyes. The majority of people have experienced it at least once. For many, it never truly ends. Being self-conscious is not a dramatic state. It doesn’t make an announcement. It manifests itself in the little things, such as pausing before expressing your true thoughts, quietly scanning the room before deciding how loud to…
There is a specific type of loneliness that lacks a clear term. It’s not the loneliness of spending a Friday night by yourself or losing someone due to time or distance. It’s more subdued. You find yourself at a table with people you’ve known for years, in the middle of a group conversation, and you realise you have very little to say. You’re there in person. You’ve already moved on emotionally. When emotional development surpasses a social circle, it feels like this, and it occurs far more frequently than most people openly acknowledge. The experience usually develops gradually over months…