Author: Dr. Julie

It was a lazy Sunday afternoon. That morning, Kenny and I had enjoyed a beautiful worship service at a church in Portland we recently started attending, and then a leisurely lunch discussing the challenging sermon we just heard, and then, a luxurious nap.

It was now 4:30pm and the sun hung low in the sky patiently awaiting its disappearance below the horizon. Kenny was across the street finishing up a few chores.  I relaxed in our living room in the brown leather chair with a glass of pinot in one hand, a book in the other, my feet up on the hearth in front of a warm fire, endeavoring to practice the ancient rhythm of Sabbath. I found my thoughts shifting from God to my patients and the upcoming work week as I read my book, Practicing the Presence of People, by Mike Mason.

The author explained how he was inspired to write this book after studying Practicing the Presence of God written by the seventeenth century Catholic monk Brother Lawrence. I had been drawn to the book desiring to do a better job at my job. Having recently overcome a few financial hurdles, I was wondering about slowing down a little, to spend more time with people, namely my patients, and to make that time more quality time, staying fully present, really listening and reflecting, rather than thinking about what was coming next. I had even commented to a friend a few weeks earlier that I felt the Holy Spirit was leading me to “practice the presence of people over profit.” I was not sure what that meant or what it looked like exactly, but I was curious to find out.  

The blaring ring of my cell phone jolted me from my thoughts and brought my Sabbath to an abrupt end, even preempting the setting sun. I heard Kenny’s weakened voice on the other end of the line. He was gasping for breath. “Call 911- I drove – the tractor – over the bank – call 911 – you won’t- be able – to get – me out – of here.”

I ran as fast as adrenaline enabled, yelling into the phone, “I’m coming! Where are you!  I’m coming!” I sprinted the half mile across the street, down the hill, and over the gravel road, first spotting the upside down, mangled tractor and then arriving upon my mangled husband.

Old training kicked in. There was no blood. He had an intact airway, was breathing, all be it shallowly, and he had a pulse. He was moving all four extremities as he flailed in pain.  I could feel the fractured clavicle but was unsure of internal injuries.

I spoke calmly to the 911 operator who suggested I put a blanket over Kenny while we awaited EMS. Our friend and neighbor, Terry, appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, and laid his coat over Kenny.

The ambulance arrived presently, and five paramedics went to work. They quickly placed a C-spine collar on him, assessed his vitals, lifted him onto a backboard and then onto a gurney. Each bump over the gravel elicited wails of increasingly excruciating pain from Kenny and jerked anguished  tears from me. Clearly this was more than just a broken collar bone.

I drove behind the ambulance but could not keep up. I made a few phone calls and asked for prayer. “It’s 5:15pm now,” I calculated, “With CT scans and all, we’ll get back home before midnight.” I remained naively hopeful, “I’ll still be able to get enough sleep and see my patients tomorrow.”  

I realized we had experienced a miracle. The injuries were not as bad as they could have been, not by a long shot. He was not dead or maimed. He had no head or neck injury and no major internal hemorrhaging that would require surgery. Even so, the injuries were worse than I expected: fractures of the clavicle, eleven ribs in several places, and three vertebrae, as well as a small pneumothorax, a hemothorax, multiple contusions, and skin lacerations.

He needed to be admitted to the hospital. I needed to cancel my Monday patients. Yet I chose to keep family and friends up to date. That in itself was a full-time job.

Kenny finally made it to a room and fell asleep, exhausted from the trauma and drugged by the pain medications.

I went home to take care of the dogs and sleep in my own bed. I wrestled with myself but still did not reschedule my patients. Instead, I woke up the next morning and after my ritual water and black coffee, planned to race to the hospital to make sure Kenny was ok. I would be able to exercise, rush to the hospital, check in with Kenny’s attending physician, and rush back in time to start seeing patients by 9:30am. I felt almost prescient having reworked my schedule with late start Mondays about three months ago.  I can do this. I can do this. I coached myself.

I walked down the dark hallway into the waiting room of my home office where my treadmill beckoned. Before I could even turn on the light, I was slapped in the face by a horrible stench. One of my dogs aberrantly left a pile right in front of the entry door. No, there was no way I would be able to get rid of that awful smell in time to see patients. I finally gave in.  I guess I am canceling patients for today. Practicing the presence of people over profit apparently started with Kenny.

Rachelle conveniently texted a random question. I informed her what had happened. She wanted to help. I conceded and she cleared my day.  

At Kenny’s bedside, I had lots of time to ponder. I realized it seemed ridiculous that I would even contemplate going about my normal day when my husband lie broken in a hospital bed with multiple fractures and internal injuries. It’s a no brainer that as his wife, this is where I needed to be. Why was this such a difficult decision for me? Just as I observed myself running to Kenny, was I now seeing myself running away?

Instead of judging myself for even considering working, however, I stayed curious. What was I afraid of? What story was I telling myself? I talked with my sister, Amy, and she stayed curious with me.

Practicing the presence of people, as I was to find out, reading further in the book, actually started with me.  I first had to be open and honest with all my thoughts and feelings.

“I do not judge myself,” states Paul in 1 Corinthians 4:3. As I explored my various emotions, “taking every thought captive” took on new meaning.  There was space at the table for all of them: fear, worry, anger, uncertainty, as well as faith, hope, love, and trust.

I recognized that some of my own past traumas were resurfacing, particularly when my son, Sammy, became ill and was hospitalized twenty-seven years ago. This was not that; but it sure smelled like it.

I observed that the memories were not threatening to take me down; they were asking for help. I allowed them to resurface and invited the Holy Spirit to shine His compassionate light, to sort out truth from fiction, and start a deep, healing work.

Practicing the presence of people. If I am not able to truly come to grips with my own thoughts and feelings, positive and negative, especially in the face of curve balls, withholding judgment and leaving space for compassion and curiousity, how would I be able to do this well with others.

Kenny’s injuries are well on their way to recovery. And so are mine.

I feel very fortunate that my husband and I are on the same page about so many things. And I am not talking religion or politics, though we agree on most issues in those areas too.

We share similar interests in recreation. We enjoy hiking, kayaking, gardening, walking on sandy beaches in Hawaii, and most recently, pickleball. We have similar tastes in décor, furniture, art, shows, etc. We like gathering around the table with family and friends, making and sharing a meal. We love spending time with our children and  grandchildren.

One of the most important values we both share is ageing well which means we both enjoy eating healthfully.

It was not always this way. Early in our marriage, neither of us paid much attention to food quality. And we were not necessarily in agreement with what constituted healthy food.  We both had bad habits, nostalgic tastes, and wrong thinking.

Kenny held fruit juice as an excellent source of vitamin c and served our kids orange juice or mixed fruit juice every day for breakfast and then packed capri suns in their lunches. My version of healthy Kraft mac and cheese included adding tuna and broccoli to the powdery chemicals.

He threw away my diet coke and I hid his karo corn syrup (which he poured on top of the inch coating of jam and butter that he slathered on the Krusteez pancake made with egg and vegetable oil) in the trash.

As we both dove deeper into the big wide world of nutrition, we picked up the good with the fads, eventually getting away from the promise of finding the fountain of youth in any one supplement or diet and embracing the fact that food – high quality food – has to be our main source of nutrition. After all, our bodies are constantly turning over cells. That is, we are getting rid of old dead cells, and making new ones. We make the new cells out of the food we put into our bodies. The better the food quality, the better the cell quality. And the better the cell quality, the better the health.

Over the last ten years, we have moved from packaged foods, convenient meals, and fast food, to being very picky about restaurants, spending more time in the kitchen, more money on groceries, experimenting with new recipes, making our own mayo, dressings, even crackers. We have gone from grocery store produce to organic to growing our own or foraging from local farmers.

We are not perfect. We are still in process. And we trip each other up at times. I buy the occasional “healthy” cereal. Kenny buys Haagen Daz bars or tortilla chips or processed cheese. Or beef jerky. Or licorice.

Most of the time when I open the cupboard or refrigerator and see foods that don’t serve me, I see them with imaginary labels stuck on them reading “Not My Food” or “Kenny’s food.” I tell myself that Kenny has different nutritional needs than I do He is physically active on the job from sun-up to sun -down. He is a guy. Etc.

Most of the time, I can overlook his culinary temptations. But sometimes, when he brings his bowl full of yummy goodness to our den where we kick back and unwind before bed, when he is reclined in his lazy boy, chomping away on whatever delicacy he has cooked up, way after the kitchen was closed, it’s hard not to want to share that with him. So. Sometimes. I do.

I feel for my patients who are not on the same page as their significant other or family members about a healthy lifestyle. They end up making two different meals a lot of the time, or choosing the best they can, which is so hard. I have so much respect for them as we work together to help them stick to their new habits with or without family support.  

I have also seen time and time again how healthy living can have a ripple effect.  I love to hear patients report their spouses are losing weight too, or are seeing improvements in their blood sugar or blood pressure or sleep.

The process of making changes can be a kind of wellness evangelism. Not by judging or proselytizing like a reformed smoker, but by patiently inviting friends and family to come along for the wellness ride, by modeling new ways of experiencing life and health.

It must be Spring I mused, examining the crop of weeping vesicles on my right posterior thigh. I tried not to scratch. Spring is when my beloved husband, Kenny, moves from spending most of his waking hours inside the shop to outside in the dirt. He is not as sensitive to the oils from poison oak as I am. Even doing his laundry leaves me vulnerable. Where did I put the Technu?

When that rash was finally drying up and starting to scab over, I noticed three smaller red dots forming a linear pattern on my left thorax. Breakfast, lunch, dinner. The saying I had learned at the clinic where I completed a dermatology rotation as a fourth-year med student echoed in my mind, followed by the working diagnosis of… bed bugs. I stared at the new rash again.  Bed bugs?!? My skin started to crawl. I bristled. Not because I was above bed bugs. Ok, there is that. But the last time I had an encounter with bed bugs, I ended up with a reprimand from HR. I was only trying to defend the dignity of the bed bug victim. It’s a long story. I shook my head and moved on to the second diagnosis in my differential of localized, pruritic rashes: contact dermatitis.

The new laundry detergent my husband had bought may have been too harsh for my delicate skin. I was having an allergic reaction to it. I stripped the bed, washed the sheets in hot water and vinegar, and shoved the ridiculous notion of bed bugs way down on my list of differential diagnoses. The huge hassle that would ensue to get rid of them was too much to think about just now.

I slept fitfully that night, uncomfortable in my own skin. I itched everywhere. My husband was skeptical and underwhelmed watching me strip the bed again the next morning. “I don’t have a rash,” he reasoned.

“Well, you did not get poison oak either,” I said curtly as I shoved the sheets in the washing machine and poured in the hypoallergenic detergent I made him buy.  In any case, we were headed to Texas for a week to help my mom’s big move. Whatever was causing my new rash would be gone by the time we got back.

The work of packing and moving and an unexpected night in the ER with Mom completely eliminated all physical – and mental – traces of  skin irritation .

Home again Tuesday, we were in bed by midnight. I was exhausted from flight delays and thinking about working the next day and fell fast asleep. The alarm went off way too soon, but I was determined to jump right back into my exercise routine. I hit the showers by 7 streaking past the bathroom mirror. What did I see out of the corner of my eye? Was I imagining things now? A new rash very similar to the last one, on the other side of my rib cage.

I freaked.  The bed bug hypothesis marched back into full view and sent my hysteria into full throttle. This time everything was put in bags, and I begged my husband to call the exterminator. He easily capitulated and then made no fuss when I suggested we sleep upstairs, in a different bed, with sheets that had never been washed in the alleged offending detergent. The exterminator came and went without finding a trace of anything malevolent. Still, I fed the dryer like it was a voracious cookie monster, but instead of cookies, I fed it loads and loads of bedding which it spit out after churning them through the highest heat possible.

That Saturday morning, as per usual, I met with my accountability partner. When I hesitantly showed her my rash and recounted my story, she matter-of-factly remarked, “Looks like spider bites to me.”

Instantly, my dread, fear, and shame disappeared. “Oh…right…spider bites…of course.”

She chimed in again. “By the way, why are you afraid of bedbugs?”

Good question. And we started exploring. It was an eye-opening conversation and a healing opportunity.

The mind can be a funny thing. Our thoughts can get the best of us. I am glad for the safe people in my life who are not afraid to tell me what they see, especially when I get stuck in one point of view.

Those safe friends and family help me process thoughts and feelings, discover their source, differentiate them from reality, so I can deal with them in a healthy way.

My sessions with patients at OWW enter this kind of gentle, grace-giving exploration. And I am so glad to offer patients coaching with our Certified Health and Wellness coaches, Rachelle Mathios and Meghan Hess. They are both highly skilled in this self-discovery approach to lifestyle change. With genuine curiosity, they ask honest, probing questions which help people know themselves better. Why don’t you like to cook? When did you start believing you did not have time for yourself? Why is it selfish to take care of your needs? What does it mean that you gained weight this month? They reflect what they see and give positive, nonjudgement feedback.

Sometimes the questions get to the place where we feel uncomfortable in our own skin. But if we delve into the discomfort, staying honest and vulnerable, this kind of adventure frees us from old patterns of thinking and doing to discover new ones that change our health and our lives.

It’s funny how bad news hits you in different ways. The news of our beloved neighbor Larry’s death three years ago set me in flight, quickly running from my back door across our backyards to his side for a final goodbye and then to his wife Linda’s side in hopes of offering some comfort. Last Sunday, the news of Linda’s death left me paralyzed, unable to move.

She was the third friend and mentor who had died in a seemingly short period of time. I felt a rock in my foundation shift underneath me.

I don’t remember the first time I met Linda Geck, whether it was at one of her famous neighborhood barbecues or a more informal gathering. She was our backyard neighbor for twenty-two years and her door was always open to us. “Come in!” she would sing cheerfully from her chair when she heard our familiar knock at her back door. She’d scurry to greet us with a loving hug, at times using a cane, and lately with the aid of a walker. Her face lit up with an appreciative smile and twinkling eyes, happy to see friends who dropped in even for a few minutes. We’d come over mostly in the evenings, after she had put in a day’s work.

In the Spring you could find Linda in her greenhouse carefully planting and nurturing the seeds she had chosen that winter. She’d pour over catalogs, carefully reading about each variety and deciding which annuals would perfectly complement the other, or figuring out when each vegetable would come on, in order to time her canning. In the summer, she was in her gardens. Her flowers were stunning, something out of Better Homes and Gardens. Perennials decorated the path along the driveway. Annuals spilled out of pots upon pots in her back yard with glorious displays of color. She spent hours in late summer and early fall preserving her bountiful vegetable harvest.  And in winter, she’d be in her chair knitting or crocheting or at the sewing machine, working on her latest project. In every season, rain or shine, Linda had work to do and she did it with pleasure, proficiency, and pride.

Linda knew how to make beautiful things. She was expert at every kind of needle craft, tatting, Brazilian embroidery, needlepoint, cross stitch.  You name it, she knew how to do it. She quilted quilts, knitted sweaters, crocheted Afghans. She would find a certain item she liked at a bizarre or in a magazine, like a scarf or a placemat or doll or something, improve the design, make a ton of them and then give them all away.  I was often getting her expert advice on my projects. She always had an accessory to add to take it to it the next level.  She helped me make napkins for our son’s wedding. After the wedding was over, we sewed some of the napkins into a quilt. She helped me embroider it and tie it off.  I once crocheted an angel for her. Linda embellished the wings with sparkly yarn. I made a dress for my granddaughter’s babydoll. She added rick rack and made a matching blanket to go with it. Linda worked every day of her life adding sparkle to her surroundings.

With over ninety years filled with truly living, Linda enjoyed sharing some of the pages of her past. Something in our current conversation would remind her of a lesson she had learned or a friend she met or an event in her life and she recounted a lively anecdote as if it had just happened. She’d squeeze her eyes shut, forcing her brain to eek out vivid details from her huge memory bank, the name of the friend’s friend, or the make and model of the car, or the pattern of an article of clothing. We came to love Linda’s stories. Stories of joy and sorrow, of exploits and adventures, of hard times and hard work, of new friends and old. And she told them over and over, embellishing a different detail each time. Visiting with Linda and listening to her stories was like watching reruns of your favorite Waltons or Andy Griffith or Little Rascal episode.  Funny. Poignant. Sometimes with a moral or a lesson. Through laughter and occasionally tears, Linda was a great storyteller.

Linda looked back on her life often but mostly found joy in looking ahead. To the next season, the next barbecue, the next celebration, the next gathering of friends and family. With great anticipation she would plan, combing through her cookbooks, to find old favorite recipes and to try new ones to please the crowd that would gather. Her faithful son, Paul, drove her all over town to buy items for the party and to invite her many friends .For months she would talk about it, the decorations, the guest list, the menu. And for months after she would muse about the good time had by all.

What Linda looked forward to the most, though, was the hope of being reunited with her whole family. She knew she would have to wait for heaven. Yes, she was heartbroken when her husband of sixty-seven years died; but she also carried the pain of losing two of her sons. One to cancer. Another to conflict. She talked about their expected reunion often and with loving, forgiving tears. “Maybe not in this life,” she would say, “but in the next, we will all be together again.” She coveted our times of prayer together for reconciliation.

The Apostle Paul exhorts us to remain “joyful in hope, patient in affliction, and faithful in prayer.” I saw Linda live this way, appreciating everything from her past, working hard in the present moment, and looking forward to eternity. I am so very grateful for her influence in my life.

I felt relief when hearing the news of Margaret’s passing. Margaret was my very good friend Lisa’s mother and eventually, my friend. Kenny and I did not know Margaret very well prior to Lisa’s sudden and untimely death September 17, 2022.  We came to know her, at least in part, in the year and a half that followed. We visited her weekly at her home where she lived alone, hanging onto independence with all her might. Struggling to make new memories, Margaret clung to memories from her past and enjoyed telling stories to her friends who frequently visited. Stories of raising her six children, her tenure with BSF, biking across the country with her husband, and traveling to Paris for their 50^th wedding anniversary. We’d bring her a meal or flowers or something I crocheted. Lisa had told me gifts were her love language.

And she was always trying to give us something. “Take it,” she’d say, pushing a towel or cook book or small trinket into my hand. I enjoyed paging through her collection of The Barefoot Contessa cookbooks, reading her hand-written notes in the margins, which recipes were hits with her family, which ones were duds and why, how she altered favorites for potlucks or parties. Is that what Lisa meant was ephemera?

Of course, we couldn’t take anything, not from someone who probably did not know what exactly she was doing. With one exception.  We did take her up on her offer of a Christmas tree from her property.

Margaret’s failing memory made it necessary for her to move to a memory care facility. We kept up weekly visits as best we could. We watched Margaret’s health and memory slowly decline. I often wondered why God allowed the kind of suffering dementia brings. But even in her decline, she never forgot her Albert or her Lulu. And she never questioned her faith. In tender moments and hushed tones, she would sing a hymn or quote scripture verses. Those memories were solid.

In time, I realized Margaret’s end of life was one of God’s great gifts to me. Despite the dementia and not always remembering my name, Margaret’s warm smile was proof she knew me and welcomed my company. Her pace was slow and her presence calming. At times during moments of clarity, she shared simple wisdom. Forgive. Laugh. Trust in God. She may have understood that our visits were what I needed and that they helped me more than they helped her.

Margaret passed away quietly in her sleep in December, one month before her 90th birthday. I felt relief for her. And release for me. Our time together over those fourteen months replaced the shock and sorrow of Lisa’s death with comfort and healing.

Human life, in any shape or form or disease state, has value and meaning and purpose.

One of the first questions patients ask me during our first session together is how long I am going to make them track their food or their steps or their sleep.

First of all, I explain to them, I can’t make them do anything. I do want to show them the value in tracking, however, because as we all know, you can’t change what you don’t track. We have to know exactly where we are before we can figure out how to get where we want to go.

If we are honest, we eat more than we think we do. Our food recall at the end of the day often forgets the handful of chips here, or the few bites of a cookie there. We don’t move as much as we think we do. We go to bed later than we think we do. Real time tracking is the best way to clarify the reality of our situation.

There are countless apps that we can use, My Fitness Pal, Carb Counter, Cronometer, to name a few. They all require an onboarding of usual meals and have various levels of granularity for counting calories, macros, and micronutrients. They come with suggestions about goal setting for weight loss and projections for when to expect to get to the desired weight.

Friends of ours wanted to optimize their health so the husband created a spreadsheet specifically to count omega 3s and and 6s in addition to macros. With an engineering background, he had it down to a science. And as one who understands the utility of spreadsheets but lacks the ability to put one together, I was quite impressed looking over the detailed and accurate results of his system. He could probably sell it.

Most of us tire quickly of tracking though. I know I do. I will download an app and at first it is new and exciting. I get into trying to be better than the day before, gamifying the process in some way. Then after awhile, I get bored with it. Or I go out to dinner or to a friend’s house and can’t input what I ate or forget and then it is not accurate and I give up.

I did the same thing with my Apple watch and step counting. Again, it was fun at first. I embraced the reality of how few steps I truly get in a day, then challenged myself to get more. But I would forget to wear it during my morning walk. Or it would run out of juice because I forgot to charge it overnight. So I knew it was not 100% accurate which created a source of frustration for me. So why bother.

But the truth is, any time I stop paying attention to my behaviors or anything that is important to me or my health, I don’t do as well and even backslide. If I lose track, I get off track.

I think it has to do with law of entropy. Things go from order to disorder left on their own. My body, my health is no exception. But with positive energy like paying attention to better inputs, I can improve or at least slow that aging process. And how will I know if there is improvement unless I measure it.

I have found that tracking behavior often trumps tracking things like calories. Figuring out why I do what I do or don’t do what I want to do is eye opening and that leads to lasting change.

We practice all kinds of ways to keep track at OWW and not just with apps and rarely calories. We offer support and accountability in a safe and nonjudgmental environment. If you want to learn more about your health and how to improve it, give us a call and we will help get you on track.

Happy New Year! What are your hopes and dreams for 2024? And how is your new year going so far?

We had an ice storm for five days complete with school and business closings, power outages, and internet disruptions. Technical difficulties, in other words. The power outage was a minor inconvenience. No power? No problem. We have a wood stove to keep us warm. Three-inch sheet of ice on your road and driveway precluding patients from coming to the office? No problem. I changed appointments to telehealth or rescheduled.  Internet does not work?  No problem. I called my friend and borrowed her office in her home where the internet is via satellite and was working.

 So, I was extra busy for the week, rescheduling, problem solving, keeping my head above water. Until the telehealth platform glitched. During one session, I could see the patient but could not hear her. And I could not see myself on my screen.  I was frantically pushing buttons, clicking, stopping, restarting, trying to make it work, getting more frazzled by the second. I finally gave up and called her and we talked on the phone.

At the end of our conversation, I applauded both of us for accomplishing what we needed to despite “not seeing each other.”  “Oh, I could see you,” she replied.  What I did not realize in my frazzle was that though she could not hear me, she could still see me. And apparently, I had muttered a few choice words during the whole frantic button clicking -why can’t I get this *$%& thing to work-  portion of our appointment. And I guess when I mutter under my breath, I actually enunciate words very clearly because she could read my lips and knew exactly which choice words I used. Embarrassed, I apologized, trying to remember what I said, but not having the guts to ask. She promised not to mention it again if I made a contribution to the “cuss jar.” First rule of Fight Club? Don’t talk about Fight Club.

Last week I gave a presentation about goal setting, specifically about improving nutrition, activity, and sleep. Again, it was not without some technical difficulties. The clicker to advance the slides was glitchy. It did not occur to me that since I was showing slides, they would dim the lights so there was not much light in the room. And at 58yo, apparently, I need a lot of light to see my notes…. And glasses…which I had misplaced. And to make matters even worse, I wore heels. You know, to look cute, cuz I am the speaker. But I got a cramp in my foot on my way to the stage.  So I am stumbling through the presentation, not able to see my notes, clicking feverishly, hobbling on my cramped food. I want to be funny, not look funny.

But I got through it.

I talked about nutrition and how we need to eat SLOW FOOD. We want to eat our food, not drink our food. Liquid food goes through our gut too fast and does not signal satiety the way eating whole food does. What’s more is that ultra-processed hyperpalatable food is already partially digested. Whole food requires more time, energy, and work from our stomach and small intestines.

Liquid and ultra-processed hyperpalatable food cause technical difficulties. Like a runaway train, they go at lightning speed through our gut, making a B-line to blood and then fat cells and messing up our metabolism. Whole food energy is more like a drive through a car wash or a school zone. Nice and slow.

Eating whole food starts with plenty of vegetables. Five cups. Five colors. The five cups provide bulk which signals stretch receptors in the stomach, one of the signaling systems for satiety. Additionally, fiber creates a kind of mesh in the stomach to slow down gastric emptying thereby keeping food in the stomach longer. The fiber mesh slows the uptake of energy into the blood stream so there is less impact on blood sugar and insulin. Fiber decreases the amount of energy absorbed. The net effect of eating veggies and is feeling full. We want to eat an array of plant colors to get the plethora of antioxidants, anti-inflammatory compounds, vitamins, and minerals which keep our cells running smoothly.

One of my 2024 goals is to help people figure out how to incorporate more plants in their diet. And no, I am not going vegan. (I had a nice grass-fed steak last night for dinner along with my three cup kale salad) To this end, I am taking a culinary medicine class to learn how to teach how to more plants.

And, come hell or high water, technical difficulties be damned! I am starting an online cooking class. Soon.

We are in the first month of the new year for a few more hours. There is still time to consider your hopes and dreams and health goals for 2024. Maybe one of them could be: EAT MORE PLANTS.

I must have been holding my breath from the time we decided on our route to the time we were finally on the plane, seatbelt fastened, tray table in the upright and locked position. The sigh of relief  I exhaled had enough gale force to get any plane off the ground.

Apparently, breath holding burns lots of calories. That and the thousands of steps I logged pacing through the terminal, waiting. What is it about being locked in the cabin of a plane that causes ravenous hunger. By the time the flight attendants came through with the food service carts, my ghrelin level was through the roof catapulting my planned fast out the window.  I’ll just eat the protein, I reasoned. That and one glass of wine which was, to my surprise, free.

I did manage to stay well-hydrated with water though.  “Eight ounces for every one hour of flight time,” said the forcibly obliging attendant who filled my glass for the fifth time only two hours in. I felt sorry for the person next to me whose gear I had to climb over to get to the lavatory, practically rappelling down her overstuffed backpack which clearly did not fit underneath the seat in front of her.   I would have waited until she got up. Evidently, she had a much larger bladder capacity.

The flight was smooth. Thankfully no turbulence and more importantly, no medical emergencies. I let out another huge sigh of relief as Elena and I de-planed in Amsterdam. We stowed our bags in the airport storage area and jumped on public transport to explore the city for a few hours. It was great to breathe fresh air, see the sun, and get into the rhythm of Holland time, nine hours ahead of Oregon.

Another train, plane, and taxi ride later and we were safely checked into our hotel in Ibiza.  Despite our travel fatigue, the excitement of being on an exotic island in the Mediterranean  drove us onward. After a refreshing shower and some clean clothes, we set off to explore the small island, a favorite holiday spot for many Europeans.  

Our dinner was late but exquisite, not because it was anything fancy, but because it was so spontaneous. We stumbled upon the Jungle Bistro having chosen to walk up a side street away from the bright lights of the main drag.  A group of musicians sat in folding chairs practicing their music outside a beautiful church adjacent to the restaurant. We found an empty table and ordered tapas. Elena chatted with the restaurant owner as if they were old friends. I watched her admiringly, taking it all in, the heat and humidity of the evening whisked away by a refreshing Mediterranean breeze, the relaxed harmony of the music sung and played by people who probably had lived in the area for years, the delicious aroma of herbs and spices wafting from the tapas, and my beautiful daughter so at ease in her own skin.

I was impressed with how well Elena communicated both in speaking and understanding the Spanish language. I was impressed with how well she navigated getting us effortlessly from one location to another. I was impressed with how comfortable she was in a place completely foreign to her before today, meeting new people and doing new things, adopting a new culture without hesitation. I tried to follow her lead and not look like a fish out of water.

“Let’s get some gelato,” she suggested when we had finished our meal. And we did.

Back at the hotel, I had one more responsibility to take care of before I could end my day: check my email. I logged onto my computer to tend to patient needs only to find out that I could not log on. The EMR that I used detected I was in a foreign country and its fire wall would not let me sign on. A million what if’s flooded my mind and drowned out the joy from the day. The ultimate question was what if I disappointed the people who were depending on me because of a detail I had not considered.

I let out a string of expletives that would have impressed any sailor.  Elena was wisely silent, knowing any comment would just make matters worse.

I quickly emailed IT support. The reply was immediate. I only had to download a VPN app for additional protection from any hackers, only $14.95/mo. Twenty tense minutes and a new password later, I was back in business answering emails and refilling prescriptions as if nothing ever happened.

The adrenaline rush gave me the energy I needed to push through my problem but then left me tired and wired. By this time Elena was fast asleep and I lay staring at the ceiling. My eyes refused to close.

“What do you think you are doing?” a familiar voice questioned.

“Uhm. I’m just trying to go to sleep here.”

“Oh no you don’t, Little Missy.  You have some ‘splaining to do,” My inner critic was paying me a one AM visit, pencil sharpened and clipboard in hand, tallying up the many mistakes and missteps from the day.

I knew exactly where the conversation was headed. I had broken every food rule I created for myself. I did not stick to my fast. I did not stick to my eating schedule. I did not have enough protein. Or vegetables. I ate late. And I ate dessert on the first day of my vacation. Utter failure. My inner critic seemed to be gloating and she was not even through half her list.

“But I walked a lot,” I pleaded.

“You hardly kept up with your daughter. No wonder you got a B+ in 9^th grade gym class. Remember your dad had to petition to have it changed. You’re a fake valedictorian. And you probably gained ten pounds. But we can’t know that because you don’t have a scale.”

“Hey, that’s a low blow!” I protested. What does 9^th grade have to do with today. Wait a minute! Why are you even here? I thought I fired you!”

“You tried, but the girl you hired to replace me is sleeping on the job. Look at her! I can’t let you backslide. I am here to protect you!”

And it was true. The coach I hired to replace my inner critic was sleeping like a baby.

I nudged her awake. “Hey, how can you sleep at a time like this We are having a major crisis here.”

She yawned and took a deep relaxing breath, not opening her eyes. “I am sleeping,” she said calmly , “because you just had one of your best days ever!”

“I did?” I stared inquisitively.

“Yes, you did,” she replied, fluffing her pillow. “You navigated a long journey across the pond, you embraced spontaneity, you enjoyed new sights, sounds, and smells, you met new and interesting people, you pivoted and problem solved, you walked your butt off, and most importantly you shared it all with your lovely daughter who really wants you to relax and have a good time.

“And tomorrow you are going to get up and have another grand adventure. So get some sleep and practice that healthy, slow down, Mediterranean lifestyle you have been preaching about.” And she buried her head deep in the pillow and nodded off. “What a lovely day,” she murmured.

“But how do I do that?”

“No buts, only ands…” The pillow was talking now. “Take a deep breath and thank Ms. Critic for her well-intentioned contribution AND let her know you are trying something new. Breathe. Again.Through your nose. You haven’t fired her. You simply reassigned her. “Again,” the pillow coached.

And I thought about the Apostle Paul and his admonition to take every thought captive. I knew that my thoughts were producing chemicals. Positive thoughts, positive chemicals. Negative thoughts, negative chemicals. No wonder our creator encourages us not to be anxious. “Do not worry, saying what shall we eat or what shall we drink. For your heavenly father knows you need all these things.”

A healthy lifestyle is about so much more than eating right and exercise. It’s about choosing to be present, being at peace in the present, seeking first things first, discerning mountains from molehills, enjoying the people you are with, and seeing that life is so, so good.