• home
  • books
    • Naked DJ
    • Opposites Attack
    • When I Married My Mother
    • Zerk ‘Em
    • Other Writing
  • Bio
  • Blog
  • Listen
  • Newsletter
  • media room
  • contact

Jo Maeder

Author

Follow Jo on SoundcloudFollow Jo on PinterestFollow Jo on YouTubeFollow Jo on Instagram

Categories

  • Author Q&A
  • Aviation
  • Birds
  • Blog
  • Books by Jo
  • Contest
  • Cooking/recipes
  • Dolls
  • Entertaining
  • Entertainment
  • Essay
  • Event
  • Family
  • Fundraising
  • Grief
  • How To
  • Love
  • Maya Angelou
  • Medical
  • Nature
  • Non-profits
  • Ocular/uveal melanoma
  • Pandemic
  • Pets
  • Pop Culture
  • Q&As
  • Radio
  • Relationships
  • SUMO
  • Technology
  • Trailcams
  • Travel
  • Voiceovers & Narrations
  • Writing Advice

Recent Posts

  • LOSING MY EYE AND GAINING A FAKE ONE: Art Meets Science in the Making of a Prosthetic Eye (plus FAQ)
  • PASSION ALWAYS WINS: How Lenny Horowitz Helped Transform Me and Miami’s South Beach Almost Fifty Years Ago
  • WHAT WE CAN LEARN FROM THE JAPANESE
  • MY TRAIL CAMERA OBSESSION: Tips and Triumphs from Spying on Wildlife
  • SUMO WRESTLING: How I unexpectedly fell in love with an ancient Japanese tradition

Archives

LOSING MY EYE AND GAINING A FAKE ONE: Art Meets Science in the Making of a Prosthetic Eye (plus FAQ)

December 18, 2025 by Jo Maeder Leave a Comment

I’d never heard of ocular/uveal melanoma before I was told I had it. Odds: six in a million. My vision in my right eye had become blurry. I thought it was my cataract progressing. Surprise. Had my ophthalmologist been using early detection retinal imaging, it would have been caught sooner, the tumor small enough to […]

LEARN MORE

Filed Under: Blog, Grief, Medical, Ocular/uveal melanoma Tagged With: ocular melanoma, ocularists, prosthetic eye, uveal melanoma

MASKS FOR LIFE: Wearing a mask is liberating. I’m not saying good-bye for good to mine yet.

June 21, 2023 by Jo Maeder Leave a Comment

It took me a nanosecond to embrace wearing a mask when the pandemic hit. Aside from deterring all airborne infections and reducing the risk to others, it checked these boxes: • No one sees my “phony smile” • No one sees me talking to myself • No one sees my Resting Bitch Face Nor did […]

LEARN MORE

Filed Under: Blog, Essay, Grief, Medical, Pandemic Tagged With: Covid, RBF, tinnitus

FREE THINKING: The #1 way to increase happiness is…

November 20, 2017 by Jo Maeder 4 Comments

Life is not a bowl of cherries for anyone. We must take the bitter with the sweet, we’re told. But some people seem to have an innate melancholy they can never shake. Studies now show that we stay at the same level of happiness our entire life. There’s only one thing that’s been proven to […]

LEARN MORE

Filed Under: Essay, Family, Grief, Love, Medical, Relationships Tagged With: forgiveness, gratitude, happiness, hoarding, Thanksgiving Day

My Spinal Fusion Saga (with a happy ending).

October 7, 2011 by Jo Maeder 1 Comment

After viewing an MRI of my lower back, I prayed New York neurosurgeon Dr. Ezriel Kornel wouldn’t utter the dreaded word “surgery.” He said, “You have a cyst in the ligaments around your L4 that has to come out.” I visualized a laparoscopic number with a tiny scar and I’d be back home the same […]

LEARN MORE

Filed Under: Medical Tagged With: Dr. Ezriel Kornel, L4 and L5 pain, slipped vertebrae, spinal fusion, spinal fusion recovery

Copyright © 2026 Jo Maeder
Terms of Service & Privacy Policy | Data Access Request