Category: Life Style

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.

It’s days like today that make me wonder what on earth am I here for.

I woke up and drank my ritual coffee, talked with my husband, got ready for work, then realized I had a late start so decided to bake cookies for Zeke whose birthday is in 2 days. I kicked myself for not thinking about doing that last night when my day finished by 6:30 and I literally had nothing to do but laze around on the couch waiting for my husband to come upstairs and watch Palau, a movie about a great evangelist who did something great with his life. When am I going to do something really great with mine.

Ok, ok. I have. Done something great. I don’t discount any of that. I overcame a difficult childhood, performed well at college, made it on my own for a year before heading to medical school, graduated at the top of my class, then managed to make it by the skin of my teeth in residency and began the practice of medicine. I married, had three children, grieved the loss of one, struggled through a rough marriage, navigated muddied waters with a nanny brought on a short-term visa which expired at the inconvenient time I was raw from grief and fighting for my life, literally, having to tell myself the truth to drown out the ugly voices of worthlessness and self-doubt.

Then I met Kenny, and we started a different life. I scaled back; he worked all the time. We blended two families and birthed child number four. Life was not perfect, but it was beautiful. We home schooled successfully. I went back to work. Our kids started to fly the coop and blossom. I dug deeper and learned more about nutrition and obesity, started a clinic, had the rug pulled out from under me, so started another clinic with the support of Kenny and friends. I navigated challenging waters, outside of the machine of medicine, outside of the influence of insurance, and now I am operating out of my home.

I don’t negate any of what has happened. It was for a purpose, on purpose. I want to do more.

And now, as I am waiting for my next patient, I am wondering: .What else is there for me to do.

I don’t want to wish Monday into Tuesday. I don’t want to rush through the week to come to Friday with nothing to do. I don’t want to fill my days with busyness because I am not comfortable with seemingly empty moments. I want to be in this moment.

And I don’t want to go back to the frenzy of working every waking moment.

God, what do you want me to do. What do you have for me to do. What on earth am I here for.

What is my purpose when You are my resource. How do I love You and love others in this moment.

I think I know what I don’t want.

I don’t want to be unequally yoked.

I don’t want to run ahead.

I don’t want to do nothing.

I don’t want to move further in the practice without shared partnership.

I don’t want to chase and fret and worry and talk about money like it’s the only thing that drives me.

I don’t want to compare myself to others or be jealous of where they are.

I don’t want to rehash the mistakes of the past.

I want to press on to the goal to win the prize.
I want to figure out what the prize is.

The prize is Jesus.

I want to encounter Jesus in every interaction I have with another person or show them Jesus in me.

I want to stay strong and available for my kids.

I want to play with my grandkids.

I want to have energy for the rest of my days.

I want to use my mind and create and support others.

I want to figure out how to create a retreat center.

My dream is to see people set free from our culture’s unhealthy relationship with food.

My dream is to see people set free from entrapment by big food, big pharma, and big health care and insurance.

My dream is to see people have access to healthy foods they enjoy, take time to lovingly prepare food to nourish their friends, family, and themselves.

My dream is that life would slow down so we could enjoy the arts and the activities AND enjoy eating whole, real food.

My dream is for healing of deep wounds that have been filled in and covered up by food and weight gain which only causes more wounds and feels like a never-ending cycle.

My dream is to run a retreat center that would wrap around care for doctors, teachers, nurses, leaders. who struggle with obesity, with all its physiology, psychology, and spirituality.

I want to invite people to come together, share, prepare food, learn, let go, grow, stretch, walk, pray, cry, heal. And be renewed.

Today, I am writing this in the Define Your Dream section of my daily journal. Let’s see what happens!

Though many of my family members had chosen the medical field as a vocation, Grandpa Rosenburg a doctor, Grandma Del a nurse, Dad an army medic, I suppose my desire to go into  medicine was most heavily influenced by my mom.

Mom worked in several capacities as a registered nurse over the years and juggled her work and family life well. Home Health for a stint, then as a floor nurse at our local hospital, then in their emergency room where there were no doctors on staff. In whatever way she could flex her work schedule around her five children and husband, she would, sometimes working nights and weekends, sometimes swing shift.

I have fond memories of her coming home after her 3-11 ER shifts. Even after a long day’s work, she’d always look in on us kids, climbing the stairs to our bedrooms, the two boys bunked in the smaller room on the left and we three girls piled in the larger room on the right. I was a light sleeper and woke easily to the sound of her footsteps, the creek of the door opening allowing entrance to the tiniest ray of light.  “Who did you save tonight, Mom?” I’d inquire about the red stains on her white dress, imagining all kinds of scrapes and skirmishes skidding through our small-town ER.

Having a mom as a nurse had its downsides, though. We kids knew we had to be on death’s door to get out of chores or school or homework. “You’re not that sick,” Mom asserted, pressing her palm against the forehead of whichever one of us was claiming to be sick and rebuking any illness back into the dark abyss from whence it came. Late one night during one of her shifts, my dad carried me up the three cement steps through the back door of that small town ER. I was a wilted flower limp in his arms, my temperature having escalated to over 104 degrees  Dad’s alarm met nurse Mom’s experience and composure. “She’ll be alright,” Mom assured him after a thorough exam, and gave me Tylenol with a glass of water and sent us out the door. “I’ll check on her when I get home.” And she did.

Our family outgrew the small house on Eastbrook Drive and we moved across town a few blocks away from the hospital to Vernon Avenue and a larger but older home in need of a few repairs and fresh paint. With our family’s changing needs, Mom’s job changed too. Eventually she worked for Dr. Charles Warne, a General Practitioner, whose office was housed in a professional building in the same block as the hospital.

Dr. Warne was a mountain of a man. He stood over six foot tall and I’m guessing weighed all of three hundred pounds. Complete with booming voice and commanding personality, he was not only mom’s employer, he was our family’s doctor. I made sure I was really sick before ever complaining to Mom.

“She has the bronchitis again,” he’d pronounce distinctly into the Dictaphone which sat on the desk in the efficient exam room. He could hear my coarse breath sounds wheezing their way out of my lungs; he hardly needed to use his cold stethoscope. He’d dart out of the room and my mother would dart in with a syringe full of penicillin aimed right at my left thigh.  

His waiting room was always packed. Dr. Warne would see upwards of forty, sometimes sixty patients in a day. Mom would make haste to fill the six exam rooms, everyone dressed down to the waist, gown open in the back, no matter what their chief complaint was, a puncture wound on their index finger even. And he would start down the line, weaving in and out of the exam rooms one through six, then back to one, like the carriage on an old-fashioned typewriter. He had a method to his breakneck madness, dictating while taking a history, then a perfunctory but skilled exam, then barking out orders to his two nurses who moved like whirling dervishes to keep pace with him. I’d come home from softball or tennis practice in the early evening to find Mom sprawled on the living room couch, unwinding from the day’s dizzying work. 

But there were the occasions when Dr. Warne would slow down and give all his attention to one patient for thirty minutes, even an hour. A nurse would call from the hospital to clarify orders for an inpatient and Mom would have to put her on “hold heaven.” Dr. Warne had a strong foundation of faith. And when his patients needed it, he prayed with them. Apparently, no one minded the imposed longer wait at these times because they knew if they ever needed more than the usual five-minute visit with Dr. Warne, they would get it.

When I was old enough, Mom arranged for me to clean Dr. Warne’s office to earn extra money and learn the importance of work ethic. One Saturday afternoon when I arrived, he was there in the back office sitting behind his big oak desk catching up on paperwork. He called me into his room.

“Take a seat,” he said nodding his head toward the chair in front of the desk, not really looking my way.

 I complied.

“Your mother tells me you want to go to medical school,” he began matter of factly, raising only his eyes over his glasses, his head staunchly perched over the piles of paper.

“Yes,” was all I could muster, startled by the personal nature of his question.

“I’d like to pray for you,” he said as more of a statement than a request.

“Ok,” I must have said, having no idea what to expect. Prayers to me at that time were rote, responsorial, before meals, mostly at church.

Dr. Warne rose from his chair as I shrunk in mine. He proceeded to call on God as if he knew Him personally.  He laid his hand on my shoulder as he spoke inviting a calming presence that pushed my fears away.

I had been watching Mom living her life fully as a nurse and a mother, but I saw her sacrifice too. I dreamt of going to medical school and having a family of my own one day; but I had no idea how I was going to make it happen, or what it took to make it happen really, only that the road ahead would be a long and challenging one. Would it be worth it. His prayer conferred a reality to my dream which made it seem like a worthy struggle which would ultimately come to pass.

I am not sure I spoke to Dr. Warne much after that. I was off to college and Mom changed jobs again, this time working as a charge nurse in a new nursing home on the outskirts of town.  One winter break, I volunteered at the nursing home to get some practical experience now that my course seemed set. For the first time, I got to really work alongside Mom, observing her carrying out her duties with great skill and caring for her patients with even greater compassion.

My family moved away from that small Ohio town to Texas.  I soon followed and applied to Texas medical schools. In time I attended UT Houston and completed a Family Practice Residency in Kentucky.

I am who I am today because of my mom and her consistent example of hard work, resilience, and kindness. And my thanks to Dr. Warren,too. I will never forget his empowering prayer.