Let’s Live Now
a medical memoir
by Rachel Hollander
Telling our stories is healing
“Write what you know,” I was told in a creative writing class in college, that I took on a whim. Since recovering from chronic pain and neuroplastic symptoms, I’ve naturally gravitated towards expressive flow activities like writing, something I rarely did before. In my own medical memoir, I tell my pain & illness journey, gaining insight into myself, my family, and my life experiences.
Let's Live Now, a medical memoir by Rachel Hollander
(not yet published; currently seeking an agent)
Let’s Live Now is a vivid true story of self-understanding and self-healing. It reveals the contrast between living to subsist and living to thrive. Part memoir and part exposition on chronic pain and neuroplastic disorders, Dr. Hollander relays her experiences both as a primary care doctor and patient. With poignancy, humor, and insight, she exhibits how stress hormones stimulate the nervous system and mold long-term pain and other bodily symptoms. Hollander demonstrates the unconscious brain’s role in stress that is part of the human condition. Her story highlights significant sociological events of our time, including the Covid Pandemic, opioid crisis, physician burnout, and the Great Resignation. From the Monterey Bay sanctuary and redwoods forests of California to the ancient mountains and rivers of Arkansas, Dr. Hollander learns to nurture her mind, body, and spirit while beginning to understand herself and her family. She heals her own symptoms and reconsiders how to practice the art of medicine.
From California to Arkansas
“The scene is lucid. A rare chance for conscious control within an unconscious state. I know I’m dreaming and give in to it. After climbing out of the cockpit, Brian and I hug the steely cold silver body of the airborne fighter jet above a large body of water. At sky diving height, we near landmass with sprawling city.
“It’s now or never!” Brian commands. “You have to jump! This plane’s going down!”
“I can’t!” I yell into the wind shear.
“There’s no going back now! Brian yells back.
The next moment I plunge deep into a watery abyss and force myself back up. When I reach the surface, calm Bossa Nova echoes around a resort-like courtyard with palm trees and hanging ferns. Vacationers sporting coloful floppy straw hats, designer sunglasses, and European swimwear hardly notice me, engrossed in their fruity cocktails and racy novelas. I push myself up onto the cement deck of what was only a 10-foot pool of serene Curacao-blue water. As water streams off my flight suit, I sense a newfound freedom.”
Excerpt from Let's Live Now, a medical memoir by Rachel Hollander (not yet published; currently seeking an agent)