Daniel Reyes 
Reggie was a 38-year-old graphic designer in Long Beach, California, who walked into a small community hospital on a Thursday afternoon complaining of insomnia, anxiety, and an “overwhelming feeling that something was about to crawl out of my skin.” Triage assessed him as a routine anxiety presentation. He was handed a cup of water and … Read more
Yvette, a fifty-eight-year-old retired postal worker in Houston, Texas, lived with type 2 diabetes, mild heart failure, and a thirty-year history of bipolar II disorder. For most of her life, her medical care happened in one universe and her psychiatric care in another. Her cardiologist sent her labs to an electronic record her psychiatrist could … Read more
Bernard, a fifty-two-year-old line cook in Cleveland, walked into the ER on a Tuesday with chest pain that turned out to be a panic attack stacked on top of an ulcer. Three weeks later, an envelope arrived with a $14,800 bill for the visit, the imaging, and the overnight observation. Bernard had no insurance, two … Read more
Marisol, a 38-year-old graphic designer in Albuquerque, started using lavender oil after her sister sent her a starter kit from a multi-level marketing company. Within weeks she was diffusing seven different blends, swallowing oregano capsules for “immune support,” and applying undiluted clove oil to a toothache that turned out to be an abscess. When she … Read more
Three weeks into recovery, Reggie was sitting in his sister’s kitchen in Cincinnati when the pharmacy called. His monthly Vivitrol injection was approved, but the local CVS could not stock it. The pharmacist explained that Vivitrol is a specialty medication that ships from a designated specialty pharmacy, refrigerated, with a 48-hour delivery window, and his … Read more
Reggie had been a paramedic in Phoenix for twenty-two years before the call that finally broke him. It was not, in the end, the worst call he had ever run. It was a routine cardiac arrest in a quiet neighborhood, an elderly man whose wife stood in the doorway and asked Reggie what she should … Read more
Adina was forty-one, recently divorced, and a senior accountant at a Minneapolis firm when she booked the trip her therapist did not exactly endorse. Twelve days alone in northern Portugal, no itinerary past the first three nights, a small backpack, and a cheap phone with international data turned off most of the day. She cried … Read more
Marisol, a thirty-four-year-old graphic designer in Austin, Texas, had tried four hearing therapists before she gave up on talk therapy entirely. Each session followed the same script: a stranger interpreter would arrive, sit between Marisol and the clinician, and translate her ASL into spoken English. The clinician would respond in English. The interpreter would sign … Read more
Patricia Donnelly, a 58-year-old retired teacher in Cleveland, Ohio, had been in private-practice therapy for two years when her panic attacks worsened despite three medication trials and weekly CBT. Her primary care physician at Cleveland Clinic suggested a referral to the hospital’s Center for Behavioral Health, where psychiatrists, psychologists, and a neuropsychologist could coordinate. Patricia … Read more
Marcus Reyna did three combat tours in Helmand Province before the Marine Corps medically retired him in 2019. The PTSD diagnosis came first, the alcohol came second, and by the time he was thirty-two he had been evicted from two apartments in San Antonio and was sleeping in his pickup outside a Whataburger. A VA … Read more