The mission of National Eating Disorder Awareness Week is to facilitate open, honest preventive communication about the attitudes, perceptions, and pressures that shape eating disorders and body image issues. An eating disorder is not a choice, it is a life-threatening illness. In light of the fact that 91% of women on college campuses have attempted to control their weight through dieting and that 1 in 3 of those dieters develop compulsive eating and/or exercising behaviors, it is crucial that those of us who have overcome the frightening, destructive grasp of an eating disorder open up and share our story of hope.

My personal fight with an eating disorder started innocently as a goal to get fit and healthy as a freshman in college. I was never overweight, but I suddenly became very self-conscious in a dorm room filled with girls who were prettier and thinner. I began joining in on the nightly runs and workouts with the other girls – not only were helping me lose weight and get in shape, but I was making new friends as well. It was very difficult for me to be in a new place with no one I knew. I had grown up in a small Christian high school where everyone knew my name, where it was easy to be popular and liked, and where I identified my worth with the achievements, awards, and titles that I held. Now, as I began to compare myself with my new friends, I suddenly felt insecure and as if I had lost my worth. With the praise that I began to receive about how great I looked, I started to believe that being skinny would be what could make me happy and feel self-worth. Read More »

As college students, we pretty much think of ourselves as invincible, I know I certainly have. Until recently that is. I’ve been in car accidents, including one where my car hydroplaned off a cliff. I’ve drank myself to the point where I should have gone to the hospital. I’ve had my life threatened. But those things never quite hit me to the point where I realized I could have died.

On January 2nd, I woke up at 4:30 in the morning with a searing pain in my left lung and back. It felt like two cinderblocks were pushing on either side of me and every breath felt like a knife going through my lung. I have a low pain tolerance, but this was the worst pain I’ve ever felt in my entire life. I managed to walk to my parents’ room to wake them up as I was gasping for air. My mom helped me back into my room while my dad furiously researched the new medication my dermatologist put me on, convinced it was a side effect. I eventually fell back asleep, but when I woke up again I was greeted by pain that was even worse than before. My mom came in to check on me, and I told her I needed to go to the hospital.

In the emergency room, one of the doctors listened to my symptoms and said “I think you may have a blood clot in your lung.” What? A blood clot? In an 18-year old? I was so confused and scared; I immediately started bawling. They quickly took blood out of my left arm while putting an IV in the other, and I woke up in the middle of a CT-scan. They did ultrasounds on my legs to make sure there were no clots because that’s where most clots originate. About an hour later, another doctor came in and told me they did find a clot in my lung.

I was terrified. Read More »

After suspecting for years that I have sleep apnea, I finally got around to going to a pulmonologist and discussing it with him. He agreed that my symptoms sounded apnea-ish and recommended that I do an overnight sleep study at my local hospital.

I wasn’t afraid to do the study or anything like that, but I did want to get the best sleep possible since I had three job interviews scheduled for the next day. Error in judgment? Perhaps, but there wasn’t much I could do about it because I’d have to wait at least a month if I wanted to reschedule the sleep study.

Generally, these studies take about 9 hours—an hour to put on and take off the equipment, 7-8 hours to sleep (or perhaps I should say “sleep”), and a little bit of extra time to fill out forms. If you’re not an early riser, you’re out of luck, because at my sleep clinic the wake-up time was between 5:30 at 6 a.m. Luckily, I had to get up early anyway, so it wasn’t a big deal.

When I arrived at the clinic, the sleep technician greeted me and explained what she was going to do—put about a zillion wires on almost every part of my body. She explained to me that the wires on my arms and legs would monitor my physical movements, the wires on my chest would monitor my breathing, and the wires on my head would monitor my brain activity and sleep levels. Read More »

[Every once in a while, we have to go something that blows. Something we’re not prepared for. Something, that at least, makes a good story…]

I took my off clothes slowly, placing them in the plastic hospital bag and eyeing the hospital johnny with intense trepidation. Intense, fearful, trepidation. I was in the hospital for a biopsy – a biopsy that had been scheduled the day before – so there really hadn’t been any time to prepare for what was about to happen. And when it comes to hospitals, I need to prepare.

After clothing myself in a paper thin gown and crawling underneath a paper thin blanket, I made small talk with a nurse as she prepared vials for the blood she was about to take, and an IV she was about to shove into my arm. Apparently, when you get a biopsy of something hanging around your rib, lots of things are included; vials of your blood, IVs, a few needles of Novocain, “conscious sedation”, and some kind of giant, hand-cranked needle to do the actual biopsying.

The hand-cranked needle was the thing I was least happy about.

I sat underneath the blanket and wiggled my feet, squinting as the nurse flicked the inside of my elbow, the same place that had been flicked only a few days before, and squinted even more as she stuck the needle in. “Looks like someone already got you right here!” she said cheerily, and I nodded as I bit my tongue, wondering if she knew how painful it was to puncture an already bruised patch of skin.

Once the IV was taped securely to my arm, I began the always taxing process of sitting and waiting. People in scrubs padded in and out of the room, my parents stood over the bed and made some strange jokes, and my nurse checked my blood pressure, pulse, and asked me thousands of questions – including if I was in “spiritual distress” (a question I considered answering yes to, because, isn’t every twenty-something in spiritual distress?). Read More »

[Every once in a while, we have to go something that blows. Something we're not prepared for. Something, that at least, makes a good story...]

I looked down at my shirt, suddenly wondering if it was too revealing for this slightly backwoods New England waiting room. The few other people also waiting for the doctor were mostly over 40, fans of crocs and t-shirts advertising farm stands, and all seemed to be looking at me over their glasses or magazines. I turned back to the wall and checked my watch; I really wanted to get out of here so I could swing by Marshalls before handing the car over to my parents. A week out of the city had its perks – and cheap clothing was one of them.

The doctor herself opened the door to the waiting room and looked at me, motioning with her hand that I should follow her. I got up, vaguely wondering why she had come out to get me herself. After all, I had just gone in for a simple x-ray; proof that a dislocated rib I acquired as a kid was still dislocated.

Instead of walking inside an examination room, we stepped into her office, and she pushed my x-rays up on a light board so I could see them. Something looked strange. I blinked.

“So, you can see, right there, you’ve got a tumor on your ninth rib.”

A what? Huh? I shook my head. I felt like she was speaking French. I couldn’t understand. Read More »

Shia LaBeouf, the adorable movie star who used to seem so sweet and cute, apparently made a promise to himself to become just another one of those a**hole actors by breaking a bunch of laws in recent months. Early this morning (Sunday, July 27th), LaBeouf pushed his a**shole act up a notch by flipping his car on “the corner of Fountain and La Brea” in Hollywood and smashing up his hand bad enough to go into surgery shortly after. As soon as he got to the hospital, LaBeouf was arrested and charged with DUI.

Updates will no doubt come in as the day wears on, but as we all wait for those updates to happen, we here at CC are going to make our own promise to ourselves: no more fantasies involving actors who are lame enough to think that driving while intoxicated is a great way to get around.

After what felt like zillions of months of waiting, there was finally a new episode of House this week. And I’m sorry to say that if you missed it… well, you didn’t miss much. It didn’t totally suck, but the writers must have been warming up before they eased into the really good stuff. Here’s a recap:

The patient du jour was a dude who collapsed during a protest and who appeared to have no major symptoms other than occasional fainting spells. House, however, usurped the patient with the theory that his niceness (yes, NICENESS) was a symptom of a more serious illness.

After a bunch of tests, the team found out that the guy had neurosyphilis and that the condition was supposedly affecting his brain. Kutner also tested a vial of “House’s” blood that he found lying around and discovered that House had syphilis. Long story short: House planted the blood so he could pretend to get nicer with treatment and make the team believe that his initial opinion of niceness being a defect was correct. Read More »

In case you live under a rock, Britney Spears has officially gone crazier than any of us thought possible.

After freaking her sh*t last Thursday night when it came time to return her two sons to their less insane parent, Spears participated in a three-hour standoff before being rushed to a hospital on a stretcher and checking herself out less than 48 hours later (apparently too early for people admitted with psychological issues). While nobody’s saying exactly why Spears was taken to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, it’s been reported that at the time of her hospitalization, she was “under the influence of an unknown substance”.

As if the circus wasn’t big enough, TV’s favorite media-whore “therapist” Dr. Phil got himself involved in Brit’s debacle, visiting her as she was checking out of the hospital and subsequently telling every news outlet that he was “very concerned” for her.

“My meeting with Britney and some family members this morning in her room at Cedars leaves me convinced more than ever that she is in dire need of both medical and psychological intervention.” The TV doc is quoted as saying. “She was released moments before my arrival and was packing when I entered the room. We visited for about an hour before I walked with her to her car. I am very concerned for her.” Read More »

This is one cat you may not want curling up next to you.

Oscar, a two year old stray that was adopted as a kitten by the third floor dementia unit of the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Providence, Rhode Island, reportedly has an uncanny ability to tell when a patient is about to die.

In over 25 observed cases, Oscar the Death Cat (they’re calling him that, not me) goes into a patient’s room about two hours before they kick the bucket. Sometimes he even sits down next to them.

One doctor was “convinced of Oscar’s talent” during his 13th case. A patient the doctor was tending to showed many common signs of approaching death, but Oscar wouldn’t stay inside the room. The doctor thought the feline’s correct prediction streak was over, until 10 hours later. When the patient passed away a few hours after doctors expected, Oscar was right there with her. Read More »