conversations about medicine and life

Depression: back from the dead and celebrating life

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Today is World Suicide Prevention Day. The following article is an updated version of one originally posted on this day in 2016.

Mark Thomas

World Suicide Prevention DayLike a shorter, slower version of the great All Black John Kirwan, I have decided to speak up about depression. My life is fantastic and I get immense pleasure from my love of sport, travel and the amazing people around me. But here’s a simple statement of medical fact: I have experienced major episodes of clinical depression since the age of 18. I don’t know how that works, how the same mind that allows me to drink in life like an intoxicating nectar can also turn dog on me and drag me to the depths of emotional hell, but that is the truth of it. I do know that depression can afflict anyone, regardless of how good or seemingly enviable their life is, just as cancer, heart disease or any other illness can strike anybody, regardless of how happy, famous or wealthy they are.

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Free with his fists: trying to make sense of it (Part Two)

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Carolyn McCurdie

wedding(Read the first part of Carolyn McCurdie’s reflections on this topic here.)

There are many, many victim-blaming questions that are asked. Most of them arise from cultural assumptions and I’m as much a product of this culture as anyone. There’s no blaming that anyone could do that I haven’t done to myself. One that caused me years of soul-searching is: but didn’t you see the signs? Surely you should have known.

Yes and no. With hindsight and maturity I can see that he was extremely narcissistic. Everything was about him. I didn’t recognise that. He was a heavy drinker. Every young man I knew was a heavy drinker. I wasn’t alert for trouble. I didn’t know I should be. There was no violence at all. This didn’t begin until about a year into the relationship. By that time I was committed.

So why didn’t I leave? Such a common question, and one much easier to answer.

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The people are fighting back – with coffee cups

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Paul Sorrell

cup of coffee At a time when communities are being fragmented, human relationships  increasingly commodified and people alienated from the political system, signs of resistance are springing up, often in unexpected places. In Dunedin, and particularly in North East Valley, close to where I live, community gardens and self-help groups are burgeoning.

And so is the morning tea movement. Eleven ago, however, when a friend and I started walking up the Bullock Track and along Highgate to a café in Roslyn, we never suspected that we might be a part of something bigger. In danger of burning out from a high-stress job, my friend took the sensible first step of shaving two days off his working week. The next “step” was the walking cure – a brisk uphill trek ending in a caffeinated reward.

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Free with his fists: trying to make sense of it (Part One)

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Carolyn McCurdie

full sleeved blouseI told myself it wasn’t so bad. After he’d knocked me down, he never kicked me. He never broke bones, never did anything that needed medical attention. In eight years, he forgot discretion only twice. Then I had the black eyes, fat lip, swollen, discoloured face that the world could see. I hid inside, rang in sick, made carefree jokes about walking into cupboard doors.

But mostly he punched my upper arms. Often it had nothing much to do with anything I’d said or done. It was stress relief, when life hadn’t gone the way he thought it should. “Pete never allows for a stubbed toe, does he,” someone remarked when she’d witnessed the beginnings of a tantrum, controlled because people were there. I bought blouses with voluminous sleeves, because at those times my arms were too swollen to fit into ordinary sleeves.

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Dear Melanie (Part Two)

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Mike Riddell

Mike Riddell continues his conversation with Melanie from the Travel Insurance Claims Team. (Read Part One here.)

man and beltMy next appointment for the Urology Department was 29 March. I was eager to get it under my belt, to get my results and be able to move on to getting the anticipated rebore. To my abject despair and shock, the doctor informed me that I had prostate cancer. Not only that, but it was Gleason Score 10, which is as high as the scale goes. The most aggressive and fastest-growing form of the cancer going. Ten minutes that changed my life.

Let me explain Melanie, since it might be relevant to my insurance claim. In the 64 years since my entry into the world, I had never in my life been in a hospital other than as a visitor. I was a fit, healthy, vital man with a wide range of interests. I didn’t do ‘sick’.

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