HEATHER'S CORNER Every few years my heart needs a little maintenance. Same procedure I've had done several times over the years, nothing new, nothing scary, honestly the easiest part of my whole month. We knew it was coming, we planned for it, no surprises there. Here's what was new: the last time I had this done, I was the patient and Rob was the one who stepped up and ran the house. This time Rob is the one who needs care, which means my own surgery isn't just a prep on me anymore. It's a...
12 days ago • 3 min read
ROB'S CORNER This week, medically, we have both been a mess. Heather's recovering from her own thing. I'm tapering off a med. Between the two of us we've got maybe one functional nervous system, and we're sharing custody of it. My neurologist warned me before we started the taper. Coming off this one, she said, might make you feel bad. Not sick. Bad. Just, bad. Which is not a diagnosis you can Google your way out of, but at least she told me to expect it instead of letting me think I'd lost...
19 days ago • 2 min read
Rob's Corner I was in my mid-thirties and standing at the pinnacle of my medical career when the tremors and balance problems first appeared. At the time I told myself they were nothing more than the cost of a demanding profession. Looking back, I understand that chasing my ghosts, the unresolved trauma of military service and the PTSD and TBI that never fully left, had steered me into a career that both fed the disorder and gave me a place where I could still function at a high level. The...
26 days ago • 2 min read
Rob's Corner The Knock That Wasn't There I don't remember much from that late afternoon other than lying in bed, not sleeping. The room was dim. Heather was next to me, quiet the way she gets when she's half resting and half watching. Marley was in the room too, curled up in her bed like she owns the place. She was out cold. No twitching. No ears perking. Just deep, easy sleep. Then I heard it. Clear as day. Knocking on the front door downstairs. Not a soft tap. Not the kind of sound you...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
From the Nest — August 12, 2026 Issue Welcome back to the ongoing, unscripted, occasionally alarming series we like to call our life. This episode: Rob moonlights as a stuntman in his sleep, I moonlight as his security detail, and neither of us gets a paycheck or a full night's rest. Grab your coffee. Here's what's actually going on. Rob's Corner The combination of RBD and Parkinsonism has a bigger effect on my daily function than most people realize. At night, the RBD means I don't stay...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
FROM THE NEST | Issue 16 The glue was dry. All of it. ROB'S CORNER She came upstairs and it only took one look to know she was mad. I was still waking up. I had no idea what had happened downstairs. I asked her what was wrong. She told me. I did long blinks. I want to be clear that I understood every single word she said. I also understood that laughing would have been the worst decision I had made in recent memory. And I have made some bad decisions recently. She hobbled out. I did more long...
about 2 months ago • 4 min read
FROM THE NEST | Issue 15 We did become someone else. Here's who. ROB'S CORNER I want to tell you something about the Veterans Expo. I said yes. Not because I am back to what I was. I am not going to pretend that. But I have spent enough time hiding behind what I used to be, and it has not helped anybody. Not me. Not the guy in the back of the room who came but does not want to be seen. I know that guy. I was that guy. For years. He is not going to be reached by statistics or by someone...
about 2 months ago • 3 min read
FROM THE NEST | Issue 14 Your brain is still working. So are you. ROB'S CORNER World Brain Day. I have a complicated relationship with that phrase. When you spend your career in medicine, when you teach at the doctoral level, when your entire professional identity is built on a brain that performed under conditions most people will never encounter, being told your brain is the problem is a specific kind of loss. But here is what I have learned, and I did not learn it easily. The brain that...
2 months ago • 3 min read
FROM THE NEST | Issue 13 He didn't believe me. For years. And his brain was not lying to him. That is the part nobody tells you. ROB'S CORNER Trust was everything in my world before this. In special operations you trust the man next to you with your life. Not because you like him. Because you have verified him. You have watched him perform under pressure. You have seen what he does when everything goes wrong. Trust in that environment is not given. It is earned through evidence. And then the...
2 months ago • 4 min read