My life with disability has been the subject of several interviews through the years, including one that appeared in Folks magazine in January 2018, and an interview conducted in February 2023 by Léa Hirschfeld that is finally being released today as part of an Out of Sync Podcast series, which explores “life through disability, one story at a time.”
Listening back to the interview, recorded less than three months after my sister’s death, I was struck not by how much had changed, but by how much had endured. The interview is broader in its subject matter than I’d remembered. It deals not only with my medical challenges, but also with my work on Ayn Rand, libertarianism, and dialectics. It explores the dangers of ideological rigidity in the face of real-world constraints, the need to live in a known reality, rather than an unknown ideal.
Léa invited me to record a brief update, which is included in the podcast, since so much has happened over the last three years.
Today’s companion essay, “Back to Life from the Brink”, is a sequel to a 2024 essay that marked the fiftieth anniversary of the surgery that saved my life from a rare congenital condition known as Superior Mesenteric Artery Syndrome (SMAS). That essay—“‘Born Again’: Fifty Years Ago Today”—can be found on both Medium and my home page.
“Back to Life from the Brink” discusses the catastrophic events of October 2025, which led to two emergency surgeries and a new lease on life with a colostomy.
My writing has always been my passion. On a personal level, it has also been therapeutic and cathartic. Beyond this, I hope today’s content, shared across multiple platforms, brings attention to topics often stigmatized when discussed publicly.
“Back to Life from the Brink” can be found on Medium, Substack, and my Home Page.
Léa has posted links to the Out of Sync Podcast interview with me here: “Thinking Freely, Living Carefully: Life with SMAS | Chris“. Here is the YouTube link:
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