Word: brokenly
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...body. When skin, cartilage, muscle or other tissue is injured, peripheral nerves in the area send a shrieking signal to the spinal cord and brain. The immediate result, usually processed in the spinal cord: you pull your hand away from the stove, you shift your weight off the broken bone, you sit down. All pain signals ultimately land in the brain, where they trigger thought ("That was dumb!"), emotions (tears, sobs), memories and a complex array of biochemical events aimed at protecting your body from further harm...
With chronic pain, however, the alarm continues to shriek uselessly long after the physical danger has passed. Somewhere along the line--maybe near the initial injury, maybe in the spinal cord or brain--the alarm system has broken down. What researchers have only recently come to understand is that prolonged exposure to this screaming siren actually does its own damage. "Pain causes a fundamental rewiring of the nervous system," says Dr. Sean Mackey, director of research at Stanford University's Pain Management Center. "Each time we feel pain, there are changes that occur that tend to amplify our experience...
...province over the past three decades. Hariri, a one-time ally of Syria, had symbolized the best hope of a growing opposition movement in Lebanon to press for Syrian withdrawal. Although he had carefully nurtured his own relationship with Damascus during his tenure as Prime Minister, Hariri had decisively broken with Syria last October when he resigned in protest at efforts to alter Lebanon's constitution, at Syria's behest, to allow the pro-Syrian president Emil Lahoud to serve a further three years. He quit soon after voting for the change demanded by Syria...
...always asumed that a broken heart was just a metaphor, a cliché of country music and romance novels. So I was as surprised as anyone to learn last week that doctors now consider it a real medical event, one that can kill...
...good news about the condition doctors are calling the broken-heart syndrome is that it's reversible--provided the initial shock isn't too great. And repeat occurrences appear to be uncommon, no matter how many surprise birthday parties they throw...