Julie Kerry spent two decades in pain before doctors diagnosed her with breast cancer in 2019. The pain had started with fibromyalgia and scar tissue on her brain from a seizure-inducing condition called mesial temporal sclerosis. Relief was easy to come by — a former partner saw to that. Four years later, she was buying hydrocodone on the street. But after years of harboring a corrosive shame about her addiction, she finally had enough. Seeing the wonders treatment worked on her daughter’s addiction, Julie got help.

A few thousand more homes had their power restored Friday in Southeast Louisiana. But around 309,000 remain in the dark.

Hundreds of thousands are without power Thursday after Hurricane Zeta tore through Southeast Louisiana, and some may have to wait 10 days to get it back.

Hundreds of thousands of Louisianans are without power and dealing with wind damage from Hurricane Zeta on Thursday morning. One person in Louisiana is dead.

He sounded like a grandfather, but he had no grandkids. His voice, gruff and hardened from years living on and off the street, softened as they got to know each other. Him, a divorced, homeless father we’ll call John, with throbbing leg pains, calling from a motel room near the airport in Lafayette. Her, Donia H., a young woman of Iranian descent, calling from her parents’ house outside Atlanta. His leg pain sounded like complications from diabetes. And diabetes killed her uncle.

As the country battles a third wave of COVID-19 cases, Louisiana has managed to keep its number of new infections relatively low. But with cases on the rise in neighboring Texas and Mississippi and in the northwestern corner of the state, Assistant Secretary of Public Health Dr. Joseph Kanter is worried that there could be another spike.