Losing the ability to communicate well is one of the most devastating effects of a stroke. It was to me, when I had a stroke in 2002. One day at the drugstore, shortly after my discharge from the hospital, the pharmacy clerk asked, “Is that Anne with an “e” or without?” I hesitated, confused by [...]

Don’t miss  Linda Watanabe McFerrin’s new story “Bali Belly and the Zombie Apocalypse,” up today on World Hum, the best travel-zine in the Ethernet. Linda spins a spooky tale that will make you rethink your travel medicine bag. She proves, once again, that old travel-writers’ saw: Anything that doesn’t kill you is  fodder for great [...]

  Am I Crazy? As an autoimmune patient with APS, as a stroke  survivor on blood thinners, people sometimes ask why I travel to places teeming with opportunities for disaster. “Places where medical care is thin, the water is often unsafe and the food chancy; places with infectious diseases, malarial mosquitoes, venomous snakes and the [...]

  It’s a jungle out there and I just can’t get enough of it! Come help me celebrate publication of my story “Why I Still Travel to the Wild” at a book party sponsored by Left Coast Writers. It’s  on Monday evening, November 14, at 6 pm at Book Passage San Francisco store at the [...]

The Australians call them ‘mozzies’–such a cute name–as though mosquitoes were just pesky little creatures that buzz and bite, one of the minor annoyances of venturing off the beaten track. I used to think of them that way, too, until I started traveling to the tropics and meeting people who’d had malaria, dengue fever (its [...]

  So far, this has been a three-bears summer where I live in Lafayette, swinging from a too-cold foggy chill to a too-hot swelter with the sun beating down and the temp pushing 95. I’m missing those “just-right” days we usually count on at this time of year. The chill is easy to manage with [...]

Here’s a great opportunity to learn more about autoimmune disease: a free public forum in San Francisco on Saturday, August 20, at the Westin San Francisco Market Street Hotel. Details at:  http://sanfranpublicforum.eventbrite.com/ Rita Baron-Faust, Author of The Autoimmune Connection, will speak on “Women and Autoimmunity: Making the Connection,” and Virginia. Ladd,  President and Executive Director [...]

  In May, I posted on the benefits of Vitamin D as a way to help reduce the risk of blood clots – as a stroke and APS (antiphospholipid syndrome) patient, that’s  always on my mind. Now a new study, reported in Internal Medicine News, has linked low Vitamin D to increased musculoskeletal pain. The [...]

There’s a thought-provoking article from Associated Press on the wire this week: Alzheimer’s debate: Test if you can’t treat it? The gist of the debate is this: with today’s more sophisticated tests–such as the diffusion MRI–it’s easier for doctors to identify brain damage (in the form of plaques) that might suggest someone is developing Alzheimer’s [...]

September offers an unusual opportunity to hear the latest on developments in diagnosis and treatment of Antiphospholipid Syndrome (APS) at a free one-hour webinar set for Tuesday, September 6, at 8:00 pm EDT (5:00 pm PDT). The discussion, sponsored by the American Society of Hematology (ASH), will include three presentations: Dr. Mark Crowther (McMaster University) [...]