2026

The holidays, with their random mid-week days off the past few weeks, have hijacked my routines. Currently, I barely know what day of the week it is. Couple that with chronic sinus congestion and near constant round-the-clock coughing for weeks, and you can see why “inspiration” these last few weeks for my weekly diatribes has been waning. I feel scattered and fried, like a late-night Waffle House fight. I’m just rather out of it lately.

New Year’s came and went, with me watching an old Showtime medical drama about a pill-popping nurse named Jackie. It’s a real downer, but it’ll hook you. I’m a sucker for medical dramas. Perhaps in another life I’d have entered that field. It seems equally exciting and exhausting. I respect healthcare workers for their daily sacrifices; it must take its toll on them. I spent some of last week getting chest x-rays, sinus x-rays, and having a pulmonary function test done at an off-site location for VA—real fun stuff.

I’ve coughed every day for nearly twenty years. They say it could be connected to toxic exposure in Iraq. Either way, I’m tired of swallowing my pride and pretending other dudes have it worse, or whatever lie veterans tell themselves before denying personal care. How can I advocate care if I’m not willing to get that same care?

Still, I’ve always been intrigued by the work of doctors and the science surrounding it. The closest I ever came to working in the medical field myself was by being a certified combat lifesaver in the Army. That effectively means I can give an IV, stop a sucking chest wound, and apply a tourniquet. Every combat soldier should know this; it’s nothing special. It’s just a certificate saying I barely know the basics of trauma first aid. I only used my medical bag once while deployed. An Iraqi child threw a brick through the windshield of one of our foreign nationals, and I got to bandage his bloody head. Fun fun. I was glad to use some of my training without more trauma attached to it; it felt good to help.

New Year’s Day was a lazy day recovering from sickness and a brief visit with family for our customary southern dinner. I love this tradition. It’s one of my favorite meals my mom makes. Everyone brings a dish, each one with meaning attached. Greens represent money in the new year, black eyed peas and pork all signifying varying degrees of progress and health in the new year. Honestly, I can never remember what each item means, but we stick to our superstitious eating just in case.

The day after New Year’s, today, I find myself straining my eyes in my home office, working. The show must go on, and the assembly line of claims to process never slows. I’m thankful for the job. Last year was one of the hardest years since I’ve been there, but it’s a job, and it pays the bills—unless there’s a shutdown. It’s been a long season in the wilderness, but maybe the new year holds promise. To say I wasn’t praying for some open door elsewhere would be an understatement, but my pessimism leads me to believe there isn’t a job out there that both pays well and utilizes my passions. It often feels as though you must choose between money and purpose. Never the two shall meet. Still, I’m hopeful, and I know I’m blessed. Happy New Year! Here’s hoping it’s the best one yet for all of us.

I was recently interviewed by novelist Scott Blackburn for NPR’s Storycorps. If you want to listen to it, you can click HERE

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