Uncooked pasta. It sits in boiling water for quite some time, seemingly soft enough to eat. Yet once you take a bite, you realize the core remains hard and unchanged. Aiming for that ideal al dente texture, we often underestimate how much time it actually takes to cook through. Over the past few days, I realized this is exactly what has been happening to me. I thought my healing was going well—with ups and downs, of course. But that was only on the surface. Beneath it, my mus

Man of tremendous courage. Last year, was in good health, worked full-time in the post office, played soccer, met his friends to play dominoes, enjoyed life. He lived at home with his wife and two sons—K and N. He was clearly the head of the household. He developed chest pain suddenly and was brought to Metropolitan Hospital Emergency Room, had emergency repair of a dissecting aortic aneurysm. He had a stroke in the days following the surgery with paralysis of his left arm an