Arianne Grand-Gassaway

Nov 14, 2024 | kevinmd.com | Sunaura Taylor |Leonard Wang |Emily Hagen |Arianne Grand-Gassaway

An excerpt from Disabled Ecologies. The multicolored poisonous waste disposed of by Hughes Aircraft Company was never just TCE, the most infamous ingredient. It was always a toxic soup: dozens of volatile organic compounds and heavy metals, contaminants with names like dichloroethylene, chromium, cadmium, and benzene. The chemicals were used in the early 1950s in the manufacture and cleaning of missiles that would travel thousands of miles overseas to maim and kill people during the Korean War.

Nov 14, 2024 | kevinmd.com | Arianne Grand-Gassaway |Janet Tamaren |Gary Call |Julie Craig

As a patient advocate, I have witnessed firsthand the devastating effects of policies leading to untreated and undertreated pain. As a mother who has lost a child to drug poisoning, I have also witnessed how drug policy is driving an increasingly lethal street drug supply. With overdose deaths rising, well-intentioned policies have left many suffering without the medications they need for quality of life. Tragically, some patients, overwhelmed by unrelenting pain, are taking their own lives.

Jun 21, 2023 | filtermag.org | Arianne Grand-Gassaway

It’s a Saturday evening, the day before Mother’s Day. My husband and I are having dinner and watching a movie on television. The phone rings and my husband answers. I can hear the voice breaking on the other end of the line: “Trav’s passed, he’s gone.”My husband seems confused. But my heart immediately sinks deeper into the abyss of grief and shock I now know so well. We’ve lost a second adult child to an apparent fentanyl-involved overdose. Travis, my stepson, was 39.

Feb 27, 2023 | filtermag.org | Arianne Grand-Gassaway

My life changed in a matter of seconds, when in 2010 I sustained a serious spinal injury in a tree-cutting accident. The pain was almost unbearable. For the first three months, I had to sit upright in a chair, day and night, unable to lie down or move much, aside from getting to the bathroom. I was prescribed medications, including an opioid. The pain was still severe. But even though the medicines didn’t take all the pain away, it was like having a knob that turned down the volume.