Author: David Lin

I tried to open my eyes but they were welded shut with clotted blood. I tried to sit up but my body completely ignored my will and refused to budge. I felt a brief rush of relief as I drew another breath, knowing that I had made it through the night…

A week after I left, the shelter manager called me to let me know that Marcie did well at the vet and her cough had improved. I returned to the shelter to pay for the vet and pay Marcie a visit. This time the shelter was full of dogs…

The very first thing I noticed when I got home was how cold I was. An overwhelming numbness had shielded me from any sense of tremendous injury, dysfunction, or pain, but that wore away in stages over a few days. The cold was oppressive and unrelenting and saw me shivering while huddled under my blankets…

From the cath lab I was wheeled directly to the ICU. A collagen plug was holding my femoral artery closed with its anchor stabbed through a major nerve. I was gritting my teeth through incredible pain while being told that I shouldn’t move at all, not even to turn my head, and that I should…

Fifteen years before my trip to the cath lab, I awoke and rose before the hot Texas sun climbed above the horizon. There was something a little unusual about that morning – as freshman cadets we were conditioned to be constantly harassed by the upperclassmen, a cheerful component of an education meant to reduce our…