Amber Kostka, who owns The Stockpot restaurant in Hampton Roads, Va., says she has tried to do right by her employees by offering them health insurance, alongside good wages and a 401k. 

But as costs have risen—premiums have roughly tripled since the company first started offering health insurance in 2018—her employees are increasingly telling her they can’t afford health insurance. That’s even though she splits the cost of premiums with employees, which are roughly $400 a month. 

Instead, employees are dropping out of the plan and going uninsured, she says. About 35% of her eligible employees now buy the employer-sponsored health insurance, she says, down from 50% prior to COVID. She wants to warn them about the risks of going without insurance, she says, but also knows their finances are extremely tight. “It’s just a cost thing, at the end of the day,” she says. “You can’t stop paying for groceries.” 

Her employees aren’t alone. The share of working-age U.S. adults without health insurance rose to 11.2% in 2026, up from 8.9% in 2024, according to new research from the Commonwealth Fund. People don’t have health insurance because the costs of everything—including gasoline, housing, and food—are rising, and they’re deciding they can’t afford to pay for even employer-sponsored plans like Kostka’s. “The whole system just seems like a complete gamble with people’s lives,” she says. 

Some people are looking at the price of plans on the Affordable Care Act marketplace and deciding they can’t afford health insurance. Premiums on the ACA marketplaces increased by an average of 58% in 2026 after Congress decided last year not to renew expiring subsidies. 

Ironically, these uninsured Americans may be helping drive the cost of health care even higher, fueling a cycle in which health insurance gets more expensive, forcing more people to drop coverage. As hospitals field more uninsured patients, they have to pass the costs of uncompensated care onto someone. “When providers have to provide a lot of uncompensated care, how do they make themselves whole? They raise prices,” says Beth Umland, director of employer research for Marsh, the health benefits consultant company formerly known as Mercer.

Of course, having more uninsured Americans isn’t the only reason costs are rising. A Marsh survey of employers recently found that they expected total health benefit costs per employee to rise 8.2% in 2027, the highest increase since 2003. One reason was that the consolidation of health systems was leading to higher prices, as some systems had monopolies in certain markets. Another was that lower government spending for public health programs was leading to higher costs for private sector plans.

“This is starting to feel—’unsustainable’ is the word you hear,” she says.

Many of the reasons why health care costs are rising may seem minimal until you start adding them up, Umland says. For example, more doctors are using AI scribes in care, which are helping them bill for more services, making care more expensive, she says. A clause of the No Surprises Act, which was passed by Congress in 2020 to protect patients from surprise medical bills but which allows disputes to be settled by arbitration, has also added billions to costs, she says. 

There are also increasingly more treatments available for patients, and those treatments are more expensive than the ones they’re replacing, she says. One example: GLP-1s, which may save insurers money in the long run on health costs but which are expensive upfront. “That’s just a whole new category of expense that didn’t exist before,” she says. 

In its survey, Marsh found that many employers were planning to pass costs onto employees after years of trying not to do so. 

Overall, workers are paying on average about $7,471 annually towards premiums for employer-sponsored family health benefits this year, up 9% from 2025, according to a new employer health benefits survey from KFF. Workers at small firms with less than 200 employees—like Kostka’s—are especially hard hit, paying about $9,687 towards family coverage: $2,847 more than workers in larger firms. 

And even as they pay more for health care, the plans available to them are getting costlier to use. The average deductible for employer sponsored plans has increased 34% over the last 10 years, according to KFF. 

What employers are doing

Kostka says there have recently been fewer health insurers in her area to choose from. Two years ago, she switched from just buying insurance outright for her employees, which many small businesses do, to self-funding the plan. She was able to do this because her employees are relatively young and healthy, she says, making her risk of incurring big medical costs for cancer or a catastrophic illness relatively low. 

But she knows she’s just a major diagnosis away from being dropped from the self-funded plan, she says. “It’s a little bit of a gamble right now,” she says. 

There are some things employers can do to push back against high health care costs, says Jim Winkler, chief strategy of the Business Group on Health, which published its own recent survey of employers which projected health care costs to rise 9% in 2027, the highest forecast the group has ever recorded.

Some employers are dropping coverage for GLP-1s for weight loss to save money, he says. Others are trying to drive employees toward what are called Centers of Excellence—essentially hospitals or medical practices with high ratings that may save money in the long-term since employees won’t need to return again and again for care. Some employers are also telling employees to try to find cheap, legitimate medications where they can—from sites like GoodRx, for example—and reimbursing them, rather than getting medications from a pharmacy benefit manager.

“We’re just painting a really challenging picture for health care costs,” he says, “which leads employers down the path of needing to find things to do to take action to mitigate them.”

A small number of employers are deciding not to offer health care at all and are instead offering employees cash to buy their own plans through the ACA marketplace. This option, called an ICHRA (Individual Coverage Health Reimbursement Arrangement) is pushed by Republicans, Winkler says, and was introduced during the first Trump Administration. 

Small employers, though, often can only choose from available plans, and if there aren’t many, they don’t have much room to negotiate. 

It’s a problem facing Mas Torito, owner of Kokoro restaurant in Denver. He spent close to $150,000 in premium payments for his employees in 2025 and is on track to spend $200,000 in 2026. That’s about 2.7% of revenues; most restaurants only have margins of 2-3%. 

“Really since COVID, every single year feels like there are these extra pressures on us,” he says.

Kokoro has been in business for 40 years, and some of Torito’s employees have been working at the restaurant the whole time. He suspects that having an older pool of employees is part of what’s driving his health care costs up every year. 

“I think they see the number of claims and costs every year going up,” he says, “and that translates into higher premiums.”

Like Kostka, Torito is committed to offering health insurance for his employees, even as his own costs rise. And like Kostka, he’s hearing from more employees that they can’t afford it. Now, only about 40% of his employees buy the insurance, he says. 

“I get it,” he says. “The deductible keeps going up every year, the insurance keeps going up. It’s enough where people are really thinking, ‘Hey, do I want insurance or not?’”

Immune-based treatments for cancer have become the biggest new advance in tackling tumors, and the latest approval could make a big difference for some people with rectal cancer.

On Oct. 19, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved dostarlimab (brand name: Jemperli) to treat a specific type of rectal cancer called microsatellite instability-high (MSI-H)/mismatch repair deficient cancer. This cancer is caused by the accumulation of certain genetic mutations that prevent rectal cells from repairing DNA damage and accounts for 5-10% of rectal cancers. In a study of 154 people with this type of rectal cancer who were treated with dostarlimab, 68% had a complete clinical response at one year, which meant doctors could not see evidence of tumors on imaging or other methods for tracking the tumors. In the study, which the drug's manufacturer, GSK, submitted to the FDA, people received nine infusions of the drug: once every three weeks for six months.

“Not only did they reach clinical complete response, but they maintained that for a year,” says Dr. Andrea Cercek, section head of colorectal cancer at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and principal investigator of the study. (Some of the earliest patients have continued to remain tumor-free for even longer. ) “That really suggests that the response is durable and real.”

Dostarlimab is a checkpoint inhibitor, which means it releases the brakes that hold back the immune system from recognizing and attacking tumors. The drug allows immune cells to destroy cancer, making it a powerful weapon for seeking out cancer cells no matter where they spread or hide.

“We have completely leapfrogged over standard of care with a simple immunotherapy that melts the tumor away,” says Dr. Luis Diaz, head of solid tumor oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering and one of the trial investigators.

The benefits of avoiding standard rectal-cancer treatment

Standard treatment for rectal cancer involves chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery to remove the rectum that requires patients to wear colostomy bags for the rest of their lives. The dostarlimab approval means more patients whose tumors have specific mutations could avoid those aggressive therapies altogether. “We have patients who would have lost the ability to bear children who have had children because this therapy replaced chemotherapy, radiation, and life-altering surgery in one swoop," Diaz says. "That’s a big deal.”

Kelly Spill is one of them. Diagnosed in 2020 when she was 29, shortly after having her first baby, Spill spent nearly nine months trying to figure out why she continued to have constipation and see bloody discharge in the toilet. Because she had recently given birth, doctors first attributed the symptoms to her pregnancy, and when they persisted after delivery, to internal hemorrhoids. It wasn’t until a doctor ordered a colonoscopy that they found a tumor.

“The doctor told me it was Stage III colorectal cancer, and that the treatment plan would include chemo, radiation, and surgery. And that I would never carry another baby again, and would most likely have a colostomy bag for the rest of my life,” says Spill. “It didn’t seem real until I heard the words that I was not going to carry another baby. I immediately stopped thinking about me, and started thinking about my husband and what it meant for my son. We had just started our lives together; we were supposed to have all these kids.”

Sascha Roth also faced devastating news when she was diagnosed with rectal cancer in 2019 after seeing blood in her stool. A resident of Washington, D.C., she had a friend with a similar diagnosis who had received chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery and recommended his surgeon at Memorial Sloan Kettering. Roth assumed she would follow the same strategy, but she learned that she had Stage III cancer and that she wasn’t a good candidate for surgery because the tumor was located so low in the rectum. Her tumor also had mutations that suggested it wouldn’t respond well to chemotherapy.

“It was a double whammy that threw me down,” she says. But the surgeon introduced her to Cercek, who was waiting to hear from the FDA about starting an immunotherapy trial for patients like Roth. “They told me I would be the first patient in the study, and there wasn’t scientific evidence that it would work.” Still, Roth wanted to try. She agreed to become Memorial Sloan Kettering’s first patient on the study, and then spent two months waiting for the FDA to greenlight the trial so she could begin receiving the drug. “I was calling Sloan Kettering incessantly to see if the FDA approved [the study],” she says. “The second the FDA gave its stamp of approval, Dr. Cercek’s team called me to New York to start the first round of treatment less than a week later.”

Not long after that, at Spill's first appointment at Memorial Sloan Kettering to discuss chemotherapy, she learned that the mutations on her tumor made her a good candidate for a study they had just begun. Only three patients had enrolled ahead of her (including Roth), so there was no data on whether it would actually treat her cancer. Spill, who was at the appointment with her mother, decided she had nothing to lose by joining the trial. “If it doesn’t go well, we could go back to option A,” Spill remembers her mother saying.

By her second infusion, Spill felt the tumor was shrinking because she no longer had major constipation. By the fourth infusion, scans showed the tumor had shrunk by 50%. The study originally called for patients to get chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery if needed after six months on dostarlimab. But a nurse pulled Spill’s mother aside after that appointment to tell her that the first three patients in the study did not need any additional treatments because their tumors had disappeared. Following Roth’s results, the study was revised to make chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery an option only if needed: if the tumors hadn’t gone away. It wasn’t a guarantee that Spill would have the same results as those first patients, but “it gave me hope, and all I could think about was maybe I could have another baby,” she says.

After all of her dostarlimab infusions, Spill, too, no longer had any tumor left and was declared cancer-free. Her doctors advised her to wait two years before trying to get pregnant again to ensure the cancer wouldn’t return. Once she was cleared, she got pregnant and gave birth to a girl in 2023, and later a boy in 2025. “I am now five years cancer-free, and last September got the boot from Memorial Sloan Kettering,” she says, meaning she no longer needs to follow up with her oncologists there. She now sees her primary care doctor for colonoscopies every two years.

“I see beauty in absolutely everything in life now,” Spill says.

What comes next for dostarlimab

Not only does the immunotherapy appear to work well in treating these rectal cancers, but it also comes with relatively few side effects. About 20% of those in the study reported fatigue, rash, diarrhea, and uncontrollable itching. Roth, who received her infusions during the COVID lockdown, drove from D.C. for her treatments and was able to make the roundtrip in one day. "It's just proof that you can really do the things you want to do. I didn't feel tired or sick after [the treatment], and there was never a time when I was at home recovering," she says. "I watched my mom and dad go through standard chemo and radiation and anticipated that would be what my treatment was like. It was nothing like that."

Cercek says the results point toward a potentially new model for managing some rectal cancers, which may include relying on immunotherapy like dostarlimab and monitoring patients more carefully before automatically turning to chemotherapy, radiation, or surgery. Some of the patients in the trial who were treated on dostarlimab underwent surgery after finishing their infusions if their doctors still felt there might be tumors remaining. Among them, despite the doctors’ suspicions, 80% did not turn out to have evidence of tumors in their specimens, says Cercek.

Dostarlimab is already approved to treat endometrial cancers with the same mutations and costs $10,000 to $12,000 per dose out of pocket, although GSK has a manufacturer's savings program to cover that cost for some patients.

“We still have a lot of learning about what complete clinical response means,” she says, and with immunotherapy, that might mean a more patient-centric, individualized approach that involves more time for the immune system to respond to the immunotherapy and become trained to attack the cancer. “If it looks like the tumor is responding, we need to give it more time with better techniques to determine whether or not the tumor is truly gone.”

Cercek and her team are studying the best ways to monitor how tumors respond to dostarlimab by looking at snippets of genetic information that tumors shed in the blood, or more advanced imaging to accurately capture changing tumor sizes. “We need to improve on those techniques but also to teach the oncology community that there is a very, very high chance that the tumor might disappear, even if it might not look like it at six months. We need to continue watching and waiting and giving it time.”

Wait a second. You’ve been standing in line for 20 minutes, famished and desperate to order one of the viral bagels that keep selling out—or for six hours outside a concert venue, determined to claim a spot at the barricade to see your favorite band.

And then someone strolls up and slips in line ahead of you. Apparently, the rest of you have been standing around for the ambiance.

How much of a sin are line-cutters committing? “You are ripping the fabric of society apart,” says Nick Leighton, an etiquette expert and co-host of the podcast Were You Raised by Wolves? Queue-jumpers have to live with that, he adds. “But worse, we have to live with you.”

Here’s exactly how to handle this maddening situation—including when and how best to speak up.

When to speak up about someone cutting in line

If a stranger jumping ahead of you feels strangely personal, Richard C. Larson, a professor emeritus of data, systems, and society at MIT who has studied queuing, understands why. “We only have a finite number of minutes of life on Earth,” he says. The cutter’s implied message: “A minute of my life is worth more than a minute of yours.”

Before you decide whether to confront the offender, think about what speaking up would accomplish. Are you trying to reclaim your turn or get revenge? Sometimes, the impulse is “to sort of let them know you think they’re a jerk,” says Ryan Martin, a professor of psychology and dean of the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Wisconsin–Green Bay, known online as the Anger Professor because he studies strong emotions.

Martin would speak up to help someone recognize “that what they did wasn’t OK and that I wanted them to go to the back of the line,” he says. But he’d also consider: “What is going to allow me to have the kind of night I want to have?” If you spend the concert replaying a confrontation instead of singing your happy heart out, you’ve lost more than your place in line.

Leighton's gut check for situations like these is to ask yourself: Is this the hill you want to die on? “That’s always a good etiquette question,” he says.

Consider your safety, too. If the person seems hostile or you feel uneasy approaching them, you can ask staff for help or let the cut go. “Health and safety always trumps etiquette,” Leighton says.

What to say—if you do decide to say something

Marie Helweg-Larsen, a professor of psychology at Dickinson College who studies social norms, has explored what makes line-cutting so rage-inducing. For a 2008 study, she and a colleague surveyed U2 fans waiting for prime concert-floor spots, asking how they would react to hypothetical line-cutting scenarios.

Interestingly, fans reacted just as negatively to someone cutting behind them as ahead of them—even though their own place wasn’t affected. “You have to have people follow the rules,” she says, “or your investment into the line falls apart.” Helweg-Larsen’s co-author also heard fans invoke a higher authority when someone misbehaved: “Bono wouldn’t like that!” 

You don’t need a rock star’s moral authority—or a grand speech—to point out where the line starts. Helweg-Larsen’s suggested opener: “Excuse me, but the line starts down there.” Aim for an “‘I’m just trying to be helpful’ kind of vibe,” she says.

That approach gives the person a chance to correct their mistake without having to defend their character. And you don’t have to believe it was an innocent oversight to deliver the message graciously. “Even if they’re doing it on purpose, you still need to use that tone,” Leighton says.

He’s been on the receiving end of a polite correction himself: At a deli, he once joined what he thought was the back of the line, only to discover he’d guessed wrong. He was happy for someone to point him in the right direction.

If you decide to speak up, do it promptly. “Your window of opportunity is short,” Leighton says. “As soon as it happens, that’s when you need to say something.” Waiting until you’ve spent five minutes glaring at the back of someone’s head won’t make the conversation any easier.

For a line that represents a serious investment of time, Martin suggests spelling that out: “Hey, I’m not sure you noticed, but there’s actually a really long line here, and people have been waiting all day.” You’ve identified the problem and given them an opening to say “Oops.”

Of course, some situations are murkier than a stranger breezing past the entire queue. Someone returning from a bathroom break is different from four friends arriving hours later to join the person who saved their places. Leighton is sympathetic to a water or restroom run. Holding spots all day for a last-minute entourage? “I don’t love that,” he says.

What to do if a line-cutter won’t move

Sometimes, your kind reminder won’t be met with the same level of helpfulness: They saw the line. They’re staying put. Now what?

If you feel comfortable continuing, Martin suggests a firmer follow-up: “I really think you should go back to the back of the line.” You’re making a direct request without adding an insult.

Larson advises skipping any confrontational nicknames or demands—like “What do you think you’re doing, bud?” You’re pointing someone toward the back of the line, not challenging them to a duel.

If the person still refuses to move, resist the urge to keep arguing. “We can’t control everybody,” Martin says. Continuing to push someone who’s already refused could lead to “a more significant confrontation.”

At a concert venue, amusement park, or other staffed location, you can ask an employee or security person to step in. “You can always appeal to a higher authority,” Leighton says. Whether they’ll enforce the rules is another question, but it’s an option worth trying when the cutting is particularly egregious.

If you decide to drop it, drop the parting shot, too. A sarcastic “Must be nice!” might feel irresistible, but Leighton advises against adding more rudeness to the encounter. “It will not achieve anything,” he says.

As Larson puts it, “A fight can ruin your whole day—or life.”

At first glance, chair yoga might seem like a workout just for older adults with mobility issues. The gentle, accessible workout offers a modified take on the ancient movement and meditation practice, usually from a seated position. No one’s asked to climb down onto the floor or independently hold themselves upright in tricky standing postures—which makes it ideal for those with limited strength or balance.   

But experts say chair yoga shouldn’t be pigeonholed, because anyone can benefit. “It is a practice that meets you where you are,” says Divya Balakrishnan, a yoga instructor in New York City. “You’re still using your strength and flexibility, just in other ways.” 

What is chair yoga? 

A yoga teacher named Lakshmi Voelker first began adapting some yoga poses to a chair in 1982 to make the practice more accessible for a student with arthritis. Since then, numerous instructors have found ways to use a chair for adapted versions of a surprising number of traditional yoga movements, like lunging warrior poses and standing-to-lying sun salutations. 

While students typically crouch, sit, and lie down on a mat in traditional yoga classes, the chair, in a way, brings the floor closer. Some chair yoga classes are done entirely seated, moving through modified variations of classic yoga sequences without ever asking participants to get up. Other classes transition between sitting and standing while holding onto the back for a little extra help with balance, or doing poses like downward dog with hands on the seat instead of reaching to the floor. 

In a sense, the chair is simply another prop. “Just like you would use a strap or blocks to increase the accessible range of motion or bring different awareness to the body, the chair can be used in a similar way,” says Jessica Pate, a Boston-based yoga teacher. 

Experienced yogis also use a chair for athletic feats that wouldn’t be possible on a mat alone. In particular, the Iyengar style of yoga uses a yoga chair (designed with an open back and a completely flat seat) for advanced postures like an upside-down inversion where the yogi’s shoulders rest on two chairs while their head hangs in between. 

“There's an infinite number of ways that you can use the chair,” says Jules Mitchell, a Las Vegas–based yoga educator. 

The health benefits of chair yoga

Research on the physical benefits of seated chair yoga has found that practitioners tend to  improve their functional fitness and experience a decrease in how much pain interferes with their daily life. Much of that research has focused on older adults, who generally have a lower baseline of fitness than younger, healthy adults. It’s unlikely that people who are in peak shape would see as much benefit. 

“You're not challenging your muscles or your balance as much as traditional yoga,” says Justin Smith, an assistant professor at Wichita State University who recently co-authored a case series on the benefits of chair yoga. 

But that doesn’t mean it’s a waste of time for more athletic folks.

For experienced yogis, doing yoga from a chair can offer new ways to explore familiar movements, says Pate, who incorporates a chair into many of her regular yoga classes. By sitting, the body’s weight gets distributed differently, which makes the muscles engage in new ways and can bring a fresh awareness to the body. “For example, with Warrior 2, having the chair underneath [my] pelvis, I'm able to feel where my sit bones are,” she says. This can help people better recognize if their hips are twisted or tilted. 

Although most people assume that sitting makes everything easier, that isn’t always the case. Sometimes the challenge just changes: Pate says she actually feels her outer hips working harder in Warrior 2 on a chair than they do when she’s standing in the pose because she’s forced into a more neutral alignment, and bigger muscles can’t take over. 

Sitting on a chair can also sometimes help people go deeper into poses. Say you’re trying to target your glutes with a Figure 4 pose, where one ankle rests on the opposite knee as you bend forward. When you’re seated, you’re able to focus more on the stretch because you’re not struggling to balance, Balakrishnan says. “If I was doing a standing Figure 4, half of my attention is going to be on the standing foot and keeping myself upright, so I may not sit as deep,” she says. 

The same is true for breathing. Pate says that the extra support of the chair makes it easier to focus on breathing deeply and intentionally—something that many students forget to do once poses get challenging. 

One group that might particularly benefit from chair yoga is people who are stuck sitting in front of a computer all day. “For anyone who works at a desk, it is a lifesaver,” Balakrishnan says. A simple seated yoga routine can relieve tight, achy joints, and multiple studies have found that chair yoga can significantly reduce stress. Balakrishnan regularly takes yoga breaks right from her chair, doing neck rolls, spinal twists, or anything else her body is craving to bring some movement and mindfulness back to her day—without feeling like she has to stop what she’s doing and carve out time for a full yoga session. “You don't have that mental barrier of, ‘Okay, let me get out of my chair, go roll out my yoga mat, go get my blocks,’” she says. “It requires less of you to begin the practice.”

There’s also a simpler reason to do seated chair yoga: It just feels good. The low-key movement can help stretch out tense muscles and get some blood flowing without feeling like you have to do a workout that impresses anyone. Smith says that all the participants in his case series were incredibly enthusiastic about their routine. “You can tell that they really just love chair yoga,” he says. 

Seated chair yoga may not build Olympic athlete–level strength and agility. But experts agree it still has plenty to offer, no matter your age or fitness level. “We all can benefit from calming down, observing our sensations in our body, and getting in a little bit of stretching,” Mitchell says. 

The last time you went for a walk, you might have focused on your favorite podcast, a call to your sister, or the number of calories your Apple Watch said you were burning.

Meanwhile, on a walk around her neighborhood, Kim Bernard noticed everything that was yellow: “A manhole cover, a yellow rain jacket, a fire hydrant, the numbers on someone's mailbox,” recalls the Maine-based artist. A “children at play” sign, part of a Pennsylvania license plate, and even a bucket of cat litter became part of the neighborhood’s palette.

Bernard was on a color walk, a simple scavenger hunt organized around intentionally noticing a certain color—and how much of it is hiding in your ordinary surroundings. We asked experts why you should make the activity part of your routine and how it can brighten an otherwise ho-hum day.

Why a color walk can help you tune in

About a year ago, Bridget Campbell, a content creator in Venice, Calif., realized she had become tethered to her phone. Even as she moseyed along the Venice canals, she brainstormed business ideas instead of admiring the colorful homes and flowers along the water. That’s when she decided to do a color walk, a concept she had stumbled upon on social media.

“It was a way to get out of my mind and come back into my body, slow down, and be present,” she says. While an ordinary walk might leave her mind racing toward work, looking for a particular color gave it something else to do, effectively putting all that other mental chatter on mute.

That’s exactly why color walks work so well: They encourage focused attention, says Cheryl Fisher, a licensed clinical professional counselor in Annapolis, Md., and associate professor of clinical counseling at Alliant University. She describes a “skim-scan-scroll world,” where it’s easy to move through your surroundings without really seeing them. Searching for color gives you a reason to look up from your phone and pay attention to what’s in front of you.

It also gives people who don’t consider themselves particularly creative an easy place to start, says Mari Reisberg, a licensed professional counselor and creativity coach in Boulder, Colo. Choosing a color to focus on provides a bit of structure while leaving plenty of room for discovery.

Reisberg still finds surprises on neighborhood sidewalks she’s traveled many times. “Oh my gosh, I’ve never seen that before,” she’ll think. Even on the most familiar routes, “There’s so much joy that shows up,” she says.

Pick a color that makes you curious

There are lots of ways to play color roulette and figure out which shade to hunt for. You could, of course, opt for your favorite color. Fisher collects paint swatches, cuts them up, and tosses them into a basket so people can draw one before heading out. A teacher once shared an even simpler approach with her: Have kids pick a color from their clothing, then look for matches along the way. You can even choose midway through your walk. Campbell sometimes spots an orange flower and decides that’s the color she’ll look for the rest of the way.

How specific you get is up to you. Finding nine fuchsia objects on a 15-minute walk? “It’s pretty difficult,” Bernard says. Reisberg sometimes opts for a particular shade, like midnight blue or sky blue, to give her eyes a more precise target. On other days, green is plenty. “There’s no right or wrong way to do it,” she says.

Take your usual walk—and see what you’ve been missing

Once you’ve settled on a color, head outside and see where it turns up. You don’t need a picturesque trail or a neighborhood full of flower gardens. Campbell encourages people who think their surroundings are too gray to give it a try anyway: Color can pop out in places you’ve passed countless times without a second glance.

When you find a match, resist the urge to mentally check it off and rush toward the next one, Fisher says. Spend a moment looking at what caught your eye. “The real gift is sitting with it and not just finding it,” she says.

You don’t have to keep your discoveries to yourself, either. “You can do it with a friend, you can do it with your mom,” Campbell says. Searching together gives you something new to talk about.

If you want a souvenir, snap photos along the way. Bernard asked participants in a color walk she led to select their nine favorite images and arrange them into a grid. Together, the collections resembled a patchwork quilt of color. You could make your own collage or save a few pictures to revisit when you need inspiration.

Or simply enjoy the walk. “We live in a day and age where everything is content,” Reisberg says. Sometimes she takes photos to share; other times, the discoveries are hers alone. If the whole thing feels a little silly at first, that’s OK, she says. Adults aren’t always used to indulging this kind of curiosity. “Keep giving it a little more space, a little more opportunity to surprise you.”

Hepatitis B can be a silent killer. It can pass from mother to child during birth and can spread through contact with infected blood or semen. Among babies infected before they turn 1, up to 90% develop a chronic, potentially lifelong infection, for which there are treatments but no cure. People may not even know they have the virus until their liver fails or they develop cancer, years later. Early-in-life hepatitis B infections, left untreated, lead to a 1 in 4 lifetime chance of developing liver cancer. 

In the U.S., hepatitis B vaccination became routinely recommended for all infants in 1991; later guidance specified that the first dose should happen within 24 hours of birth. However, in Dec. 2025, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) under the Trump Administration moved to cease recommending this practice for babies born to mothers who test negative, instead advising a shared decision-making model where parents and clinicians decide together what is medically appropriate: a dose shortly after birth, or a first dose "no earlier than 2 months of age." (For babies born to mothers who test positive or whose status is unknown, the CDC continues to recommend a dose shortly after birth.)

A new study, published today in Annals of Internal Medicine, uses computer modeling to simulate the hepatitis B infection status of an entire year’s worth of children born in the U.S. under the new recommendations over their first 20 years of life. The researchers find that if only about 26% of children are vaccinated—an estimate of what would occur under shared decision-making—chronic hepatitis B cases would rise by 225%.

When should kids get the first dose of hepatitis B vaccine? 

The American Association of Pediatrics continues to recommend vaccination at birth against hepatitis B for all infants, and 15 states have sued the Trump Administration over vaccination schedule changes. 

“It's been challenged in many states and by professional societies, but we wanted to add some evidence to the conversation about what the potential impact of those changes could be,” says Dr. Amir Mohareb, an infectious-disease researcher at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital who is an author of the new study. 

The simulation modeled how many of 3.6 million children, born the same year in the U.S., would develop hepatitis B under a number of scenarios, including if the former CDC recommendations continued to be followed, if the initial dose (also called a “birth dose”) was delayed, and if a shared decision-making scenario was employed. 

The model suggests that if the first dose is delayed until 2 months old, and only 75% of infants get it, then there would be a 19% increase in chronic cases compared to if every child received their first dose at birth. With a 26% vaccination rate at 2 months, the number climbed to 225%. 

This study modeled only at a single year of births, notes Mahoreb. “Imagine that happening year after year after year after year. That could quickly become thousands and thousands of new infections, and even a small number of new infections could result in lifelong chronic infection that could be detrimental to families, lead to more cases of cancer, and [become] costly to the health care system,” Mohareb says.

Two other recent modeling studies have looked at the impacts of changing hepatitis B vaccine recommendations. One found that if vaccination no longer occurred at birth, a substantial increase in screening pregnant women for the virus would be necessary to keep infection numbers in infants down. Another, looking at the economic ramifications, found that even if every child eventually received the vaccine, delaying the first dose by 2 months yielded an additional $16.4 million in health care spending on new infections.

“All three of these studies complement each other, in a good way, and provide some modicum of evidence so that we don't need to risk doing a clinical trial or testing this on people,” Mahoreb says. “We have done those experiments.” Decades ago, he continues, clinical trials already proved the efficacy of the existing approach, “so that we would have the benefit now of advancing medical progress and not needing to reopen that question.”

Jalen Hurts is expected to miss the rest of the NFL season after doctors diagnosed blood clots in both lungs, ESPN and NFL Network reported.

The Philadelphia Eagles quarterback has deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and bilateral pulmonary emboli, according to an Oct. 19 statement from the team. He is clinically stable and has no significant functional limitations, they said, but needs blood thinners—and can’t participate in contact activities, including football, while taking them.

“Jalen’s prognosis is very good, and we expect a full recovery,” the statement said.

The news raises questions beyond football: How do you recognize a blood clot? What does treatment involve? And why can some people stop blood thinners after a few months while others take them for life? We asked doctors who aren’t involved in Hurts’ care what everyone should know.

How to recognize a possible blood clot

Deep vein thrombosis, or DVT, occurs when a clot forms in a vein deep inside the body, often in the leg. Those veins carry blood back toward the heart. They’re different from superficial blood clots——Hurts’ original diagnosis—which form closer to the skin, explains Dr. Geoffrey Barnes, a cardiologist and vascular medicine specialist at University of Michigan Health.

The distinction matters because deep-vein clots are more likely to break loose and travel through the heart into the lungs. Once a clot lodges in an artery there, it causes a pulmonary embolism.

DVT often causes pain, swelling, and redness or a darker skin color. Patients commonly tell Barnes, “My entire calf and ankle are swollen.” One leg might look noticeably different from the other.

An injury can make those symptoms easier to dismiss. “If you’re worried that you have a DVT, it’s important that you get medical care quickly,” Barnes says. Seek a same-day evaluation through your doctor, urgent care, or an emergency department rather than waiting to see whether it goes away.

Unexplained shortness of breath, chest pain, coughing up blood, or fainting require emergency care because they can signal a pulmonary embolism. A dry cough without a cold, pain when taking a deep breath, or a racing heart can also be clues, says Dr. Stephan Moll, a hematologist and professor of medicine at the University of North Carolina who runs an Athletes and Blood Clots Clinic. 

Some pulmonary embolisms cause only mild symptoms—or none at all. People can mistake the discomfort for bronchitis, pneumonia, or a strained muscle, Moll says.

Clots become more common with age. Other risk factors include surgery, injury, prolonged inactivity, cancer, certain inherited conditions, and estrogen-containing medications. But young, active people can develop them, too.

How doctors diagnose and treat blood clots

To check for a leg clot, doctors usually use ultrasound. They move a handheld device over the skin to get pictures of the veins underneath, gently pressing as they go. A normal vein should flatten under that pressure.

With a clot, “you can’t squeeze it closed because that solid clot is in the way,” Barnes says.

Doctors typically use a specialized CT scan to look for clots in the lungs. Finding them in both lungs doesn’t, by itself, establish how sick someone is, Barnes says. Doctors also check oxygen levels, blood pressure, and whether the heart is struggling to pump blood through the lungs.

Pulmonary embolisms range from mild cases to medical emergencies, Moll emphasizes. Some people need treatment in the hospital, including medication that dissolves clots or a procedure to remove them. Many others can be treated with anticoagulants, commonly called blood thinners.

Blood thinners help keep clots from growing and prevent new ones from forming. “They do not dissolve blood clots,” Moll says. Your body gradually breaks down the existing clot, though some people are left with scar tissue.

Many people with DVT can take medication at home, Barnes says. Some people with lower-risk pulmonary embolisms can, too.

Treatment for DVT or pulmonary embolisms generally lasts at least three months. “For the first three months it’s uninterrupted blood thinners,” Moll says.

After that, doctors weigh the chance of another clot against the risk of bleeding from continued medication. What caused the clot helps guide that decision. Someone who developed one after surgery may be able to stop once treatment is complete and that temporary risk has passed. “But if this kind of came out of the blue,” Barnes says, longer-term treatment may make sense. Cancer, continued immobility, and certain clotting disorders can also affect the decision.

Having a scan that looks better doesn’t automatically mean it’s time to stop medication, Moll says. Doctors generally follow symptoms rather than ordering repeated scans to watch a clot disappear.

Even someone who stops daily medication may need a prevention plan for future surgery or another period of increased risk. “Risk factors vary, and the length of treatment varies, and the recovery varies,” Moll says.

What recovery looks like

A blood-clot diagnosis doesn’t necessarily mean you need to stay on the couch.

“I’m not asking them to go for a jog or run a marathon,” Barnes says. “But I want them to be up and walking around as much as they can tolerate,” gradually doing more every day.

Getting tackled is another matter. Blood thinners make bleeding harder to stop, so a collision or fall—especially one involving a head injury—can become much more dangerous. When it comes to contact sports like football, “I would not let an athlete play on blood thinners,” Moll says. 

For some athletes who need long-term treatment, specialists may consider a carefully managed, intermittent medication schedule after the initial three months, Moll says. It isn’t suitable for everyone and requires expert oversight; patients shouldn’t skip doses to play sports. Ask your doctor which activities you can safely return to and when.

Keeping your legs moving can also help reduce the risk of future clots. On long flights, Barnes recommends getting up to walk every one to two hours. While you’re seated, pretend your big toe is a pen and trace the alphabet with it to get your ankle moving and help pump blood through your legs. “You can do that just sitting in your seat. Nobody knows,” he says. If you’ve recently had a clot, check with your doctor before flying.

Some people feel much better relatively quickly. Others experience lasting damage to the veins after DVT, which can leave blood struggling to flow back up the leg. That can result in what doctors call post-thrombotic syndrome: “chronic swelling, chronic pain, chronic leg heaviness,” Moll says. After a pulmonary embolisms, some people continue to have shortness of breath, chest discomfort, or fatigue, particularly if the clots haven’t fully cleared.

Depending on what’s causing the symptoms, treatment might include compression stockings for leg swelling, specialized rehabilitation, or a procedure to address damaged veins or lingering clots. Tell your doctor if those symptoms linger. “We have treatments that we can offer to try and make that better,” Barnes says.

You might see an ear, nose, and throat (ENT) doctor for recurring sinus infections. Someone else might see one for a thyroid tumor, a voice that won’t return after a cold, or trouble breathing during sleep. They’re all within an ENT’s purview.

These doctors, formally called otolaryngologists, treat conditions involving the ears, nose, throat, and much of the head and neck. That includes problems affecting your hearing, swallowing, breathing, and voice—and some that require urgent care. “A lot of people will think, ‘Oh yeah, there’s no emergencies at ENT,’ and there absolutely are,” says Dr. Ryan Salvador, an ENT surgeon at Sinus & Snoring Specialists in Austin.

We asked three otolaryngologists what they wish patients wouldn’t ignore.

Sudden hearing loss in one ear

You answer your phone and realize you can barely hear your friend’s voice out of your left ear. Switch to your right side, and everything sounds normal. It’s tempting to assume the muffled ear needs to pop, Salvador says. But an abrupt change in hearing can be a medical emergency.

One possibility is sudden sensorineural hearing loss, which affects the inner ear. Salvador knows how easily it can be mistaken for something else: His father went to urgent care and was told he had fluid behind his eardrum. By the time he saw an ENT, about eight weeks had passed. “He’s completely deaf in that ear now,” Salvador says.

An ENT can examine the ear and arrange a hearing test to find out what’s causing the loss. If it is sudden sensorineural hearing loss, steroids may help—but, as Salvador puts it, “the earlier the better.” Seek medical care immediately if you suddenly lose hearing, even if your ear just feels full or you’ve recently had a cold.

A neck lump that doesn’t hurt

You might discover it while shaving, when your razor passes over a spot that suddenly isn’t smooth. Or perhaps you notice an unfamiliar bump in the mirror. Because it doesn’t hurt, you decide it can’t be that serious.

Dr. Arnbjorn Toset, the director of head and neck surgery at Good Samaritan University Hospital and Catholic Health in New York, hears that reasoning from patients: “Doctor, it’s not hurting me. I don’t have any symptoms.” But pain isn’t a reliable way to judge a neck lump. It might be an enlarged lymph node, a thyroid nodule, or a growth in a salivary gland. But some lumps are cancerous.

Dr. Shaun Desai, chair of otolaryngology at New York Medical College and Westchester Medical Center in New York, recalls a medical student who assumed his lump was related to a cold. “For eight months he sat on this lump in his neck,” Desai says. It turned out to be a salivary gland tumor. If a new lump has no clear explanation or is still there after two weeks, make an appointment.

A sore throat that keeps getting worse

A sore throat is hardly unusual. One that progresses from “this hurts” to “I can barely swallow” is another matter. Salvador pays particular attention when the pain keeps worsening and you’re also having trouble opening your mouth or your voice sounds muffled. “You talk like you’ve got a hot potato in your mouth,” he says.

Those changes can signal an abscess—a pocket of pus that forms around a tonsil. “These can be life threatening,” Salvador says. If swelling makes it difficult to breathe, seek emergency care. Worsening throat pain with trouble swallowing, opening your mouth, or speaking normally also warrants prompt evaluation.

Your partner says you stop breathing at night

Your partner hears you snoring. Then, suddenly, nothing. After a pause, you gasp and start breathing again. By morning, you may have no idea it happened.

The snoring may be what your partner complains about. Desai wants to know about the silence. “The bigger worry is, does your partner kind of stop breathing for a couple of seconds?” he says. Repeated pauses can be a sign of obstructive sleep apnea, in which the airway narrows or closes during sleep. You might wake up exhausted despite spending the whole night in bed. Untreated sleep apnea can also contribute to high blood pressure; Desai worries about people who become so sleepy during the day that they struggle to stay awake while driving.

Tell your doctor about the pauses, gasping, and any daytime sleepiness. A sleep study can show whether apnea is the cause. As Desai puts it, “Apnea is the bigger question, and that can be dangerous if not treated.”

Swelling around an eye during a sinus infection

Sinus pressure can make the area around your eyes ache. What Salvador doesn’t want you to chalk up to ordinary sinus misery is new swelling around an eye—especially if the area is red or your vision changes.

“The only thing that separates the sinus cavity from the eye is a very thin plate of bone,” he says. Rarely, an infection spreads into the tissues around the eye. Salvador has treated patients whose infections formed pockets of pus that had to be drained to protect their vision.

Get urgent medical attention for a newly swollen eye during a sinus infection. If you develop double vision or have trouble moving the eye, seek emergency care. Don’t wait for those symptoms to appear: Double vision is “a pretty late sign,” Salvador says.

Swelling under your jaw when you eat

Halfway through a meal, you notice a tender bump beneath your jaw. It settles down later—then returns the next time you eat.

Toset says that pattern can point to a blocked salivary gland. Eating triggers saliva production, but a stone can keep the saliva from draining, causing the gland to swell. It may also become painful or red.

If it keeps happening, have it examined. Toset says the cause is often benign, but an exam and sometimes imaging can distinguish a stone from another problem with the gland. If the swelling keeps returning, have the gland checked—even if it goes down between meals 

A voice that won’t come back

You talked all weekend. You recently had a cold. Of course your voice sounds rough—or maybe it’s become oddly breathy, and you can’t project the way you used to. These are reasonable explanations for a temporary change, Desai says. They become less reassuring when your voice doesn’t recover.

Salvador remembers a teacher who was struggling to speak loudly enough for her class. “I can’t project,” she told him. When he examined her, he discovered that one of her vocal cords wasn’t moving properly because of a thyroid tumor. Persistent hoarseness can have other explanations, including irritation or a benign growth, but an ENT needs to look to find out.

If hoarseness lasts four weeks, see an ENT—sooner if you smoke or have other concerning symptoms. The doctor may pass a small camera through your nose to look at your vocal cords. If that sounds daunting, Desai says the office exam “just takes a minute or two.”

Dentures that suddenly don’t fit comfortably

Your dentures fit fine last month. Now they rub the same spot every time you put them in, or they don’t sit quite right. You might need an adjustment—or someone to look at what’s going on underneath.

Toset says new discomfort may draw your attention to “a little ulcer on the gum line.” Rubbing can cause a sore, but a growth in the mouth can also change how dentures fit. That’s one possible sign of oral cancer, though there are other explanations.

Ask your dentist to examine the tissue beneath the denture, especially if a sore hasn’t healed after two weeks. They can check what’s changed before adjusting the fit.

A nosebleed that won’t stop

Most nosebleeds start near the front of the nose and stop with pressure. A bleed that starts farther back can be harder to control. The blood vessels there can “pump and pump and pump,” Salvador says, and blood may run down the back of your throat. Doctors call this a posterior nosebleed.

If your nose starts bleeding, lean forward and pinch its soft part with steady pressure for 15 minutes. If the bleeding is heavy or won’t stop, or you feel weak or lightheaded, seek emergency care.

A nosebleed that does stop can still be worth investigating if it keeps coming back. Salvador remembers a man in his 30s who had consistent nosebleeds for about six months before an examination revealed a tumor inside his nose. That’s an uncommon cause, but a good reason to tell your doctor about repeated bleeding—especially if it keeps happening on the same side.

Ear pain when nothing seems wrong 

Your ear hurts, so you probably have an ear infection, right? Not necessarily. Sometimes an examination turns up nothing wrong with the ear itself. Nerves in the head and neck carry a signal from somewhere else, and sometimes, “your brain is tricking you” about where it started, Toset says.

The source might be your jaw joint, which sits just in front of your ear. Less commonly, it could be a problem in your throat or at the base of your tongue. If the pain persists despite a normal ear exam, ask your doctor what else should be checked—especially if it hurts to swallow or you’ve noticed a lump in your neck.

One nostril that stays blocked

Colds and allergies can make your whole nose miserable. A blockage that sticks around on just one side gets Desai’s attention. “When you can’t breathe out of one nostril, it’s always a little more concerning,” he says.

The explanation might be a deviated septum, but a growth inside the nose or sinuses can also block one side. Desai worries about the delay when people tell themselves, “Oh, it’s a cold,” or “I just have a bloody nose.” If the blockage outlasts what seems like an ordinary cold—especially if that side also bleeds repeatedly—have it examined.

A sore on your tongue that won’t heal

Most small mouth sores clear up within a week or two. Toset is more concerned about one that stays put, grows, or becomes increasingly painful—particularly on the side of the tongue.

He remembers seeing a young woman in the emergency room on a Friday night. She had developed swelling in her neck, and the doctors who called Toset thought it might be an abscess. During his examination, he noticed a sore on the side of her tongue. She’d seen dentists and other specialists, and earlier biopsies had come back benign, but the sore had persisted for about six months.

“I had a biopsy. Biopsy was negative, so I left it alone,” Toset recalls her telling him. He examined the sore and grew concerned. “I had to break it to her,” he says: “I think you have tongue cancer.” Another biopsy confirmed it; the swelling in her neck was where the cancer had spread.

A reassuring biopsy shouldn’t be the end of the conversation if the sore is still there. Any mouth sore that hasn’t healed after two weeks should be evaluated, according to the American Academy of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery.

“I’d rather see someone early on in the process where I can pick up on something that is possibly benign or an early type of cancer,” Toset says, than see them after a delay that makes treatment more difficult.

For an NFL quarterback, a sore calf might seem like an unsurprising consequence of getting hit by a cleat. In Jalen Hurts’ case, an ultrasound revealed something else: a superficial blood clot.

The Philadelphia Eagles quarterback was struck in the calf during an Oct. 4 game and sought treatment four days later, according to a statement from the team. An ultrasound in London revealed the clot, but doctors cleared him to play in the team’s game there the next day.

Then, a follow-up ultrasound Wednesday night revealed “movement in the small blood clot.” The Eagles announced Thursday that Hurts would miss Sunday’s game against the Carolina Panthers while the team determines his treatment.

What makes a clot superficial—and when does it become dangerous? We asked doctors to explain.

What’s the difference between a superficial clot and deep vein thrombosis?

To understand blood clots, picture a road map. Your deep veins run within the muscles of your arms and legs, carrying most of the blood returning from your limbs to your heart. Superficial veins sit closer to the surface, just underneath the skin and in the tissue beneath it. Connecting veins bridge the two systems.

“You have a really well interconnected network of veins,” says Dr. William Shutze, a vascular surgeon at Texas Vascular Associates in Dallas and vice president of the Society for Vascular Surgery (who was not involved in Hurts’ care). Think of it as “a very well developed road and highway system,” with multiple routes to get where you need to go.

When a clot blocks one route, blood can take a detour through other veins.

A superficial clot forms in one of the veins near the skin. The area can become red, warm, and tender. “It’s usually very uncomfortable,” Shutze says. Some develop in varicose veins; others form where a needle or IV has irritated a vein.

You can sometimes feel the affected vein beneath your fingers. “It’s like a pencil underneath the skin, or a knot,” says Dr. Stephan Moll, a hematologist and professor of medicine at the University of North Carolina who runs an Athletes and Blood Clots Clinic (who was not involved in Hurts’ care).

Deep vein thrombosis involves a clot farther inside the body. Its symptoms can be more widespread—the whole calf or ankle might become swollen and painful, Moll says. You can’t feel the deep vein itself.

Many superficial clots stay put and get better without blood thinners. But sometimes, a clot grows into one of the deeper veins. A piece can then break off and travel to the lungs, causing a potentially life-threatening complication called a pulmonary embolism.

Doctors use ultrasound to assess the clot and check for deep-vein involvement, Shutze says. They’re particularly concerned about superficial clots longer than 5 centimeters or within 3 centimeters of where a superficial vein joins a deep one.

The Eagles haven’t specified those details. And “movement” isn’t precise enough to establish what happened. “That’s not a term we use in clinical practice,” Moll says. It could describe a clot growing or extending; it doesn’t, by itself, establish that a piece broke loose or reached the lungs.

How do these clots happen—and how are they treated?

Being in excellent shape doesn’t make someone immune to a blood clot. An injury can damage a vein, while prolonged inactivity slows blood flow. Surgery, certain inherited clotting disorders, cancer, and pregnancy can also increase risk, says Dr. Alina Mitina, an emergency medicine physician at Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey (who was not involved in Hurts’ care).

Veins near the skin have less cushioning when someone takes a hit. “The deeper veins are protected,” Shutze says, although a severe impact can injure those, too.

A clot can form within hours of an injury or develop over several days, he adds. If your leg already hurts from getting hit, you might not realize there’s another reason it’s sore.

Travel can add another risk: Sitting through a long flight or car ride means the legs aren’t moving as much, slowing blood flow. 

Some superficial clots can be managed with warm compresses, anti-inflammatory medication, elevation, and monitoring. Others need blood thinners to help keep the clot from growing—even if it hasn’t reached a deep vein.

If blood thinners are needed, treatment is usually temporary, Moll says, often lasting several weeks.

That doesn’t necessarily mean spending recovery on the couch. “We like them to be active because we want to keep the blood flowing,” Shutze says.

Getting up for a walk, of course, is different from getting tackled. Shutze worries about athletes taking another hit where they already have a clot. Blood thinners add another concern: An injury that causes bleeding can become much more dangerous when blood doesn’t clot as readily.

In football, “you have constant significant contact,” Moll says, which raises the risk of serious bleeding, including inside the head or muscles.

What symptoms shouldn’t you ignore?

Athletes are used to being sore. “They often minimize clinical symptoms, completely understandably, because they don’t want to be taken off the roster,” Moll says.

Pay attention when discomfort feels different, persists, or worsens. Pain, swelling, discoloration, and warmth can signal a clot. Mitina says patients sometimes describe tightness in the leg; redness around a superficial clot can resemble an infection.

If you think you might have a superficial clot, “don’t ignore it,” Shutze says. Have a doctor check it out rather than assuming it’s a bruise or muscle strain.

Unexplained shortness of breath, chest pain, coughing up blood, or fainting require emergency care because they can signal a pulmonary embolism. Moll also flags an unexplained cough and fast heart rate as possible warning signs.

And getting checked once doesn’t mean you should brush off symptoms that persist or worsen. “If something feels weird or symptoms aren’t getting better, always return to the ER,” Mitina says. “You know your body best.”