The You&Me Blog

A Mysterious Disappearance

Posted Monday July 11, 2016

Disease go away. We know that. Sometimes it’s because of heroic efforts to eradicate them. Or perhaps we just create new categories, expectations and descriptions that replace the old entity. And sometimes it’s just what the heck? For example, bladder stones. Two hundred years ago it seemed like everyone in Europe had them, especially the men. In fact, contrary to what you might expect, it was a disease of young men, and in some areas it was so prevalent as to be considered endemic. Nowadays if you google “bladder stone” first up you’ll get a mix of articles on kidney stones in people and...

A World War One Military Hospital

Posted Monday July 4, 2016

With the 100th anniversery of the Battle of the Somme coming up recently we were moved to visit the medical care of World War 1. This is King George Hospital, a giant military hospital in Stamford Street, Waterloo, London. If it looks like they're sitting in a warehouse it's because they are. The hospital was created out of a requisitioned, repurposed warehouse, which apparently took some doing, between modifying the original structure and labor problems. The hospital opened at the end of May 1915 and closed June 15, 1919. http://ezitis.myzen.co.uk/kinggeorgestamford.html has a bunch of...

Don't Eat Poop

Posted Monday June 27, 2016

Don’t eat poop …and other lessons from Tudor times. When it comes to death and disease, we’re all magical thinkers. If we just do x, or do it hard enough or often enough, then y (in this case death or diabetes or cancer) won’t come. It’s a useful fantasy in some ways, but in other ways it’s not so helpful. Because when fantasy intersects with public policy, then you have problems. For instance, the other day the National Health Service poohbahs in the UK were having one of their regularly scheduled meetings to declare they were experiencing various crises, and especially they were way over...

An interesting TEDx Talk

Posted Monday June 20, 2016

Amy Oestreicher, author of "Perchance to Dream" http://www.youandmemagazine.com/articles/perchance-to-dream and Running Away From Depression: My Tale of Surgery and Runner's High" http://www.youandmemagazine.com/articles/running-away-from-depression-my-tale-of-surgery-and-runners-high has a TEDx talk up on Youtube that might be of interest to our readers. She talks about thriving after sexual assault and twenty-seven surgeries. https://youtu.be/0x5KtBAW2EI

Our Amazing Contributors

Posted Monday June 13, 2016

Our writers don’t just write essays, they write entire books. Here are links to just a few: Karen Alaniz https://www.amazon.com/Breaking-Code-Daughters-Question-Everything-ebook... David Eyes http://www.amazon.com/David-Eyes/e/B001KIYCU0/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1465846504&sr= 1-2-ent Risa Nye http://www.amazon.com/Risa-Nye/e/B00DF7PU46/ref=dp_byline_cont_pop_book_1 Patricia Cyr https://www.amazon.com/Patients-Perspective-Tips-Doctor-Visits/dp/146364... Stephanie Allen Crist https://www.amazon.com/Discovering-Autism-Neurodiversity-Memoir/dp/15077...

The Good Old Southland

Posted Monday June 6, 2016

Popular fiction or folkways often gloss over or ignore the diseases of the past and their impact on the people who endured them. Did you see “Master and Commander” or do you enjoy this or the other nautical novels of Patrick O’Brian? Although these are often praised for their authentic detail, they have one glaring admission—scurvy and other diseases would have meant that the crew of the ship in the novel “Master and Commander” would have had to be refreshed about three times during the voyage the book treats with, due to deaths from disease. We guess a movie/book featuring the crew of a ship...

Why Did My Query Get Rejected?

Posted Monday May 23, 2016

In some ways we wish we could accept all our queries. It doesn’t make us feel good to say no. We have found that it isn’t possible to give each individual feedback on why a query was unsuccessful; some writers don’t want it, some would waste their time on false hopes, trying to “fix” the piece and, although the editorial we has taught creative writing, that’s not the relationship in play here. So we are creating this blog post, as a handy reference to those in search of guidance on how to make a successful query to any magazine, or those wishing to have a list of reasons their query may not...

A Visit to the Admitting Office 1916

Posted Monday May 16, 2016

Dr Smith at the Southern State Hospital for the Insane looks out into the admitting office waiting room on a pleasant Monday morning, May 15, 1916. A quiet day so far, only three patients, two sitting fairly quietly with their groups of attendants, probably family members, and one woman with a man who might be her husband. This one keeps getting up and pacing for a few seconds, then sitting back down. Better get started, Dr. Smith says to himself, there will probably be more, and worse, later today. He calls his first patient, Mrs. McCreedy. She comes into the examining office, accompanied by...

Let's Give the Victorians Some Credit

Posted Monday May 9, 2016

Oh, those silly, ignorant past people! You know, you probably can’t spend a lot of time on the Internet looking at web sites about the history of the past two hundred years without reading someone deploring the Victorian habit, or perhaps it is our habit of attributing this to the Victorians, that women were the “the weaker sex” or that certain physical activities might be dangerous to the frail female, and so on. What a bunch of sexist hogwash, right? Not so fast. Women aren’t necessarily weaker in any meaningful way, but without question women bear the major physical burden involved in...

Medical Musings: High Blood Pressure and Strokes

Posted Monday May 2, 2016

We were reading a report, written in 2012 about the National High Blood Pressure Education Program (NHBPEP) of the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute (no comma used in their name, apparently.) 2012 was the 40th anniversary of this initiative and the paper noted that when it was started only about a quarter of the people they surveyed knew there was a connection between high blood pressure and heart disease and stroke, and most people were not being treated. After 40 years 90% of people knew about the connection and most of those surveyed were being treated for hypertension or monitoring...