Are any of you old enough to remember David Bowie’s song Changes? It was the theme of one high school homecoming dance…I won’t say which year! There are lots of changes going on. It’s getting towards the end of the school year, but it’s not just the end of any school year. Ben is graduating […]
Posts by: Rani Elwy
The ABLE Act
May 1, 2012 at 11:06 pm
Tonight I was witness to the most interesting of sibling disputes. How do you define “volume” and “mass” and how are they different? [Don’t ask me!] Lucy and Ben got into a heated debate about this, and Ben ended up turning to his iPad for the answer. Both claim they are right. I had to […]
Eighteen Years…and Counting
April 23, 2012 at 10:49 pm
On August 16, 1991, I returned to London after a two-week trip to visit my dad and my grandparents in Kolkata, India. My grandfather had recently had a stroke, and I needed to get to Kolkata fast. The cheapest way? Fly Aeroflot–via Moscow, Sharjah and New Delhi, eventually landing in Kolkata. I’ll never do it […]
Ben Elwy, Medical Educator
April 16, 2012 at 12:56 am
The afternoon began with a plank-holding contest, followed by a heated game of chess. Then there was a bit of Minnesota trivia, a demonstration of Sprague band’s latest repertoire involving the snare drum and bells, and finally, Ben performed (death-defying, in his mother’s opinion) spins in his walker, using only his arms for support, in […]
Caregiving, a TEDMED challenge
April 11, 2012 at 10:47 pm
If any of you teach, then you know how an inspiring teacher can be mesmerizing to an otherwise tired, overloaded group of students. I’m not often that rousing teacher, but this year, I became a fan of TED Talks to help create that bolt of motivation when it was lacking. A TED Talk by physician […]
Outing Depression
April 5, 2012 at 12:01 am
After Ben was diagnosed with Schwartz-Jampel syndrome, my world began falling apart. I don’t think it was just because of the diagnosis, I think part of it was the uncertainty of what he and all of us would be facing. Up until May 2003, I had become as expert as possible on Marfan, Ehlers-Danlos, and […]
Passion, for Ben
April 1, 2012 at 10:50 pm
Lucy had a far-off soccer game, and Charlotte has a hacking cough, so it was just Ben and me this morning at St. John’s, to celebrate Palm Sunday and re-live the Passion. Ben didn’t complain that his sisters weren’t going with us. Ben’s only complaint–ever–is about practicing piano. Being at church with Ben is such […]
Unaffordable Health Care
March 26, 2012 at 10:34 pm
Here is a little quiz: How much money did the Elwy family pay in out-of-pocket health care costs in 2011? a) $5,000; b) $21,000 or c) nothing. I’m not telling….yet! The media is viral with coverage of the many case filings at the Supreme Court of the United States regarding the Affordable Care Act (ACA). […]
Voracious Reader Ben
March 23, 2012 at 11:32 am
Ben no longer has any good books to read. This is what he told me this morning. Zero Hour, the latest in the H.I.V.E series by Mark Walden, automatically downloaded to his Kindle this past Tuesday morning, is now finished. He said, “I might have to start reading A Children’s History of England”–referring to a […]
What is Implementation Science?
March 20, 2012 at 2:16 am
Cherry blossoms, frizzy hair, and a truly accessible Metro. Where am I? In Washington, DC, of course (you knew at the cherry blossoms!), attending the 5th annual NIH Science of Dissemination and Implementation Conference. When Lucy was nearly 2, she and I traveled from London to visit my brother who was then working as a […]
