For the second of two subscriber invitationals in the issue, we invited our readers to submit their subjective descriptions of a recent illness—from a simple cold to something more serious—which we then passed along to graduate students in the Biomedical Visualization Program at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Thirteen students from the program each chose one submission to interpret visually; these illustrations appear in the issue along with readers' descriptions.

Founded in 1921, the Biomedical Visualization Program (BVIS) at the University of Illinois at Chicago is the second-oldest accredited school of its kind and one of only four graduate programs in North America providing professional training for careers in the visual communication of life science, medicine, and health care. Esopus subscribers’ ailments were depicted in this issue by 13 students currently in the program: Virginia Fulford, Kenzie Green, Katherine Henning, Meredith Hoffman, Rayshueh Ku, Kate Lamy, Swan Ly, Meredith Osborne, Mandy Root-Thompson, Robert Shonk, Jill Tessler, McKenzie Wampler, and Melissa Zachritz.