Half Mast
Dear Dad, I haven’t seen you since Tuesday, April 23, 2024. I think I saw you Tuesday but I can’t remember for sure. We were supposed to be at NIH Monday the...
The Eulogy I Wrote for Dad
I gave this eulogy at my dad’s funeral today. Last night the wake filled Ocean Township with cars and people waiting to come and visit with my dad. Some...
Gerard Bergin. 3/27/57-4/24/24
Hi guys. Most of you have heard but my dad died extremely unexpectedly last week. I wanted to share the obituary I wrote for him, as well as the eulogy I...
Brunch
Editor's Note: I had this published when I was 26. Lately I have been thinking about it because the thought of a life without children feels suffocating. I...
November 2007
March 24, 2024 I wrote the following when I was 21 years old-- before I was diagnosed with diabetes, before they found the genetic mutation that was the key...
An Honest Update
It’s March 13. It is sixty degrees and the lionly weather has turned gentle and warm, like a lamb licking your face. It is March and I’m okay. Today marks 8...
How I Lost One Of My 9 Lives
8 years ago, I was sick for weeks with a cough and a cold. But something else was wrong, too: maybe it was just a feeling something was wrong. I took myself...
The Last Six Months: An Update, A Story, A Truth
Hello, all. Yes, I am back. So before you hit unsubscribe for lack of updates, I bought a new laptop and fired it up. Today is December 14, 2023, and I am...
Home ❤️
Yesterday afternoon, we packed up a hospital room no longer desperately needed. I put away pajamas built like hospital gowns, comfy, clothes, and...
An Excerpt
Transplant is approaching and I’ve been working on what I hope will turn into a memoir. It’s been helpful to write without expectation of anything, to...
The Orange Bike, Sadie & Me
Today I did something that I’m proud of: I got back on the bike. (As disgraced cyclist Lanc Armstrong might say, 😜) I’ve been watching Sadie and my mom take...
Feels like Praying
We talked about moving to the Pacific Northwest after he told me he could see at least three dozen spots of skin cancer on my body. I was nauseous with the...
The Dress Rehearsal
Nine days ago, my gastroparesis caused a vomiting episode that lasted for four days. It felt like a meat grinder had materialized in my gut, turning...
Stronger
hi, I’m still alive. Life has been hard lately. Testing for transplant has ramped up. I’ve met my new BMT doctor, an ID doc, the new pain fellow…on the 17th,...
A New Tattoo
🐧🐧🐧 In the midst of the worst depression of my life, a tweet popped up as I doomscrolled on by. It was December of 2020; we were still at the beginning of a...
Stay Here
TW: Suicide There have been so many times I have wished for a different life. There have been roller coasters or nights I did not share, because the darkness...
A Quick Note on Joy
People get so freaked out when they have the flu, or allergies or anything that makes them slightly uncomfortable for more than one solitary second. They...
October 25. 10pm. Thoughts.
I’ve never felt so vulnerable. So exposed, and in so much pain. Having a date for transplant has shaken me. I worry the days are blurring together—I KNOW the...
Summer, Summer, Where Did You Go?
9/7/22 It’s 1am and I’m lying in bed, tears soaking my cheeks, my dog licking them clear off of me. I’ve just tried taking my pills with a soda and the plan...
Solstice
My favorite part of summer is the long days, the light stretching past dinner and leaking into evening, late. Every year I mean to have a solstice party, to...
Meeting at Sloan Kettering
Today I had my meeting at Sloan post-emboli. I was pretty nervous about it and then I woke up to this sign in my front yard. And a text from Meg offering to...
Near Death Experience, But Still Fighting
Dear friends, family and new subscribers, I had a pulmonary embolism at the end of May, 6 weeks before I was set to start chemo for my bone marrow...
The Mystery Child
May 31, 2022 I miss last week. I miss April 9 or 11 or May 10. I miss the days before I knew about the ticking time bombs in my lungs, in my calves. I think...
Moving to NYC…Kind of!
Hi y’all. A lot has happened since last month so let’s get into it. At the end of March, I had a call with my doctor and the transplant coordinator at NIH....
Devastating News
Hi y’all. Last week I traveled into the city to meet with my old immunologist, Dr. Charlotte Cunningham-Rundles. I met her when I was 15 and fresh off a...
A Look Back at Brunch
I wrote this 10 years ago when I was living in NY. I polished and finished it when I moved to LA. Finding this again is such a trip. Back then, I didn’t know...
One Day at a Time
One Day At A Time 23 days. 23 days spent living in a foreign bed, with questionable greasy hair and an inability to sleep because of the constant noise and...
The actual chart!
Forgot to add the chart. it’s at this link. This was sent to me today. This is what life with #STAT1GOF is like. pic.twitter.com/LfKe4wOw9q— kelly p. bergin...
Part 1.5…a chart
This is a chart depicting the manifestations of my genetic mutation. I have experienced almost all of these.
5 Years, Part 1
Five years of trials, blood draws, spinal taps, acupuncture, scans, consults and scopes, vein-finding missions, PICC placements, echos, EKGs, hundreds of...
Nostalgia
I wrote the following 12 years ago. I often romanticize the years I lived in NY. But the reality of working while my health was deteriorating was so, so...
New Year, Same Me
January 2022 I am submerged in painkillers, but the pain is as clear as ever. I am a mouthful of open wounds; my speech is garbled, heavy with uncertainty. I...
Walking Interlaken
Many times a day, you can drive down Grasmere and catch a slowly ambling duo, crossing the streets and sniffing the fire hydrants. You might catch us pre...
Health Update from NIH
I haven’t stopped vomiting in weeks; first I was at the Jersey Shore Medical Centerr for nearly a week in the ICU, and then I was brought to my home away...
The Decision
I have been a patient at the National Institutes of Health, or NIH, (yes, I know Dr. Fauci) for 4 years. At our very first meeting, they told us that bone...
Welcome Back, I'm Dying, JK, Welcome Back
Welcome and goodnight. That’s how I wanted to start and end this new project. I haven’t written in a couple of years. I wrote a piece for a class a couple of...