☀️Field Notes: September 2024 ☀️
This month's collection features guides to fall vaccines, how a bestselling writer with ME/CFS does her work, a funny 19-step recap of a colonoscopy, making a Death doc, and more
Hello, dear friends,
September is such a transition month — for kids going back to school, jumping into a new grade with new classmates, but also for adults. The weather shifts, routines change, and the tug of September’s fresh start is still real. I wonder to myself: What will 40th Grade look like?
This month’s Field Notes of interesting things I’ve run across lately includes guides to the fall vaccines, advice on sharing a parent’s serious diagnosis with kids, how the writer of Seabiscuit and Unbroken researches her books while coping with ME/CFS, a funny 19-step chronology of a colonoscopy, and an explainer of a Death doc that we all should have.
I hope you find something helpful or inspiring below!
To our journeys,
Brianne
💉Guides to Fall 2024 vaccines
Here are two terrific guides by experts to vaccines available for three fall respiratory viruses: RSV, flu, and Covid-19.
Data guru and health writer Emily Oster offers clear, easy-to-understand, science-backed recommendations: What Fall Vaccines Should we Get?
(Her vault of health info is super: It’s called Parent Data, and it skews toward issues for young kids and families, but there’s a lot for all ages.)
Dr.
goes even more into the details in her guide:
⚡ The Unbreakable Laura Hillenbrand
Laura Hillenbrand, the bestselling author of Seabiscuit and Unbroken, has CFS/ME (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, also known as Myalgic Encephalomyelitis). Reporting trips are out of the question. How does she write such books, descriptive in their historic detail, while at home, with very limited energy?
This New York Times feature by Wil S. Hylton from 2014 details her experience with illness and how she leaned into other research options, such as buying vintage newspapers off Ebay when she could not visit the library to look at archival microfiche.
“Perhaps the biggest challenge for Hillenbrand as a reporter are the periods when she cannot read. When the vertigo surges, as it has in recent years, she has trouble focusing her eyes on the page without dizziness. Over the last 15 years, she has listened to hundreds of audiobooks, taking in history tomes like the World War II series by Winston Churchill, contemporary nonfiction works and classic literature by Tolstoy, Fitzgerald and Hemingway. Early this year, she listened to eight Edith Wharton novels in a row. Hillenbrand sometimes longs for the tactile pleasure of the printed page, but she believes her immersion in audiobooks has actually improved her writing. ‘It has taught me a lot more about the importance of the rhythm of language,” she said. “Good writing has a musical quality to it, a mathematical quality, a balance and a rhythm. You can feel that much better when it’s read aloud.’ ”
This is a fascinating profile.
Go to the full story. (gift link)
🚌 Tips for Back to School from Dr. Aliza Pressman
OK, we’re a few weeks into school by now, but these tips from
in her newsletter Raising Good Humans are pretty great. Frankly, they are useful for grown-ups, too!Here are a couple of favorites:
“Model for your child that there are no bad feelings. Be open to talking about whatever is on your child’s mind. Avoiding negative feelings can actually make them worse.”
“Remember that your job as a parent isn’t to spare your child anxiety, but to help them prepare for, sit with, and manage their anxious feelings.”
Read the full list of back-to-school tips.
💩 The 19 Stages of Your Colonoscopy by Catherine Newman
I enjoyed this funny play-by-play of colonoscopy prep and procedure from
(yes, the same Catherine Newman whose wonderful books Sandwich and We Want Impossible Things I wrote about in the last monthly Field Notes.)“Stage 1: They’ll send you a prep form in the mail and you’ll bring it to the drugstore to outfit yourself. You will need two (2) 8.3-ounce bottles of Miralax, even though what they sell there is one (1) 17.9-ounce bottle. Do you need to measure and discard 1.3 ounces? You don’t know. You will also need four (4) 32-ounce bottles of Gatorade, even though they only carry 28-ounce bottles. What are you—a mathematician?”
Read The 19 Stages of Your Colonoscopy.
Let's talk about death, baby 🎶 by Amy of Tonic
puts out epic newsletters — and this one is terrific. It includes a book recommendation (by Alain de Botton, one of my favorite authors too), a collection of interesting links, and how Amy put together a Death doc:So, what is a Death doc? It’s a Word document I created that contains everything anyone would need to know in the event of my and/or Baldy’s untimely demise. It contains headings such as:
— Passwords/combinations
— Retirement accounts
— Life insurance
— Homeowner’s and umbrella insurance
— Bills
— Locations for key things in the house
— Final wishes
I’ve long read about how such a document is a huge gift to your loved ones after you die, because otherwise untangling all your accounts is super hard. I have kept meaning to make something like this. Amy’s nudge is really welcome.
Read more about the Death doc, plus Antidote #23.
Explaining a parent's big illness to kids in Evil Witches newsletter
rounds up advice from her fellow witches (moms) on how to talk to children when a parent is diagnosed with cancer (or another major illness). Whew. I learned a few things myself.Excerpts:
“Make sure they know it’s not their fault that you got it. Kids are little narcissists and think everything is about them, so you have to be super clear that you having cancer is not a consequence of anything they did. Like, they stayed up past bedtime and Mom got mad at them and then she was tired and that gave Mom cancer.”
“Make sure they understand that they can’t get it from you and they didn’t give it to you. I was diagnosed during a COVID resurgence when all we were doing was wearing masks and talking to kids about germs and how people can give each other germs so she told me to be exceptionally clear that no one can get this from me.”
Read the full post.
Lastly, from the Odyssey of the Body archives:
✉️ A letter to a friend with a new diagnosis ✉️
A beloved friend was recently diagnosed with a chronic illness. It is not fatal, but it is life-altering. She asked me what I would tell her; she’s watched me live with my chronic illness for decades. We talked, and then I wrote it down. Perhaps this would also be helpful for you, or someone you know.
Thank you for boosting my post! A lot of goodies in this edition of Field Notes. I especially related to the ridiculousness of colonoscopy prep 🤭