Fifteen years ago, I was diagnosed with cancer. I had what the surgeon called a ‘strenuous surgery, was off work for nearly three months and debilitated for another six. But…it was OK. The results of the surgery had been the best possible, and this kind of cancer wasn’t supposed to come back.

I was listening to a tape about health during my hospital stay, and it defined health as the ability to fully participate in one’s life. That stopped me. I had to rewind the tape and listen again.

I was diagnosed with a chronic pain disorder when I was 35 years old. Though my symptoms can be traced back many years earlier, I had managed to, well, manage the pain for some time.

In my senior year of college I had a psychotic manic episode and was hospitalized for two weeks. At 21 years old I received a lifelong companion, bipolar disorder.

I am prone to sudden jerky movements that are beyond my control. The other day, I was out on an errand. As happens so often when I go out, I experienced how we judge one another. And how sometimes we are both spectacularly loud and spectacularly wrong in our judgments.