Palo Alto, California – Whitney Dafoe’s day begins at 2:30pm. His father, Ron Davis, peeks through the keyhole into the 37-year-old’s room. Is he awake?
ABSOLUTELY NO ENTRY is scrawled in red on a handmade sign pinned to the door below a picture of the Dalai Lama. Davis has rushed home from Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, to take the afternoon shift. When Whitney raises his left hand, fingers clenched to a fist, that’s Davis’s cue. Whitney is ready for his dad to change his urinal, put ice on his aching belly, and refill the IV-drip.
For the first time, Gretchen Rubin won’t be able to spend the holidays with her parents. It’s a refrain heard around the globe as people forgo traveling, and it comes with deep sadness. But Ms. Rubin, a happiness expert, says that stripping down the season to its basics opens a certain space to prioritize and preserve the “essence of the holidays.”
That might include cutting down a fragrant Christmas tree or creating platters of cookies. For Ms. Rubin, it means filling her home in New York City with paperwhite narcissus flowers. They evoke for her the iconic smell of the season – one that filled her childhood home in Kansas City, Missouri. “[The pandemic] is helping us realize how precious our traditions are and how much we do value them,” she says.
For the first time, Gretchen Rubin won’t be able to spend the holidays with her parents. It’s a refrain heard around the globe as people forgo traveling, and it comes with deep sadness. But Ms. Rubin, a happiness expert, says that stripping down the season to its basics opens a certain space to prioritize and preserve the “essence of the holidays.”
That might include cutting down a fragrant Christmas tree or creating platters of cookies. For Ms. Rubin, it means filling her home in New York City with paperwhite narcissus flowers. They evoke for her the iconic smell of the season – one that filled her childhood home in Kansas City, Missouri. “[The pandemic] is helping us realize how precious our traditions are and how much we do value them,” she says.
Are Migraines Disrupting Your Career?
You shouldn t have to choose between your health and your job, and yet migraine patients are often forced to do just that.
December 28, 2020 to bring you this special report.
Ten years ago, Erin Boyle learned the hard way how serious her migraine attacks could be. The 41-year-old medical writer and editor (then in her early 30s) had a severe days-long migraine, tried to push through it, and ended up passing out in the middle of her former office. After a trip to the hospital by ambulance, Boyle realized she needed to change her approach to managing her condition. “I hadn t been taking any medication for my migraine at the time, thinking I could ‘fight’ through them,” she says. “But I clearly couldn t–and I wasn t supporting my own health or my team s needs, either.”