D is for Dermatology

April 4, 2018 Sally8 Comments

“What kind of medicine did you practice?”

The still-wet-behind-the-ears spring-chicken doctors who have never met my father before always ask it.

What they don’t understand is how much medicine has changed in the past fifty years.

Fifty years ago, when my father left the military and settled in Cooperstown with his family, his job title was Head of General Services. General Services included the emergency room, the ambulatory clinic, and medical clinic. Basically, it was everything except OB/GYN, pediatrics, surgery, and radiology.

Back in the 60s and 70s, many doctors didn’t specialize the way they do today. They practiced medicine. The vast majority were probably what we would consider primary care providers today. Doctors followed patients their whole adult lives — or maybe it was the other way around.

As a side note, in addition to General Services, as if that wasn’t enough, my father was the medical director at the county nursing home (then called the “county infirmary”) and also oversaw public health.

As the giant centrifuge of medicine spun and spun, doctors began to be sorted out based on specialized interests. Bassett Hospital fostered learning and encouraged doctors to pursue their interests. My father’s was dermatology.

“I dabbled in dermatology,” is often his answer to the what-kind-of-medicine question. Or he’ll say, “I practiced internal medicine and dabbled in dermatology.” He was Bassett’s first dermatologist although he was never “Board-certified.” When he retired, dermatology was the last practice he gave up.

The dermatology nurses were the first to arrive at his party last month. Obviously, they adored him.

One dermatologist sent us this note (with his regrets that he couldn’t attend):

Don was one of the major reasons I came to Bassett in 1995. We talked at length by phone on several occasions, and during my recruitment visits. Don embodied everything that was appealing and excellent about Mary Imogene Bassett Hospital. He always cared so much about his patients, and all of Bassett’s patients. He was curious about their problems and committed to practicing excellent medicine. He was kind, concerned, and practiced “patient-centered” care long before the term was coined… I was very fortunate to have been able to learn from Don, and work with him as a colleague for several years before his full retirement.

Another doctor — an internist — sat at one of the tables at the party writing, writing, writing. Finally, he looked up, saw me, and said, “I want you to know this story, but I don’t think I can do it justice writing here and now. Can I just tell it to you?”

Of course I wanted to hear it. I’ll retell it as best I can remember (the places may not be correct, but the gist is there).

Before we had a dermatology department, we sent all the derm patients to your dad. He was very good.

Once, I had a patient with a peculiar skin problem. He was one of the “uppity-ups”, you know, from the city. Anyway, this fellow asked if Bassett had a dermatologist, and I told him no, but we had someone on staff who was very good. That wasn’t good enough for this patient, so he went to see the head of dermatology at Columbia. Well, that guy couldn’t help him.

About six months later, I saw the patient again. He still had the problem and asked again if I could recommend someone. I suggested your father, but he went instead to see the chief of dermatology at the Mayo Clinic. This guy was world-renowned, you know, and he didn’t know what the problem was either.

The next time I saw the patient, he was getting ready to fly to Germany. The best dermatologist in the world was there and had agreed to see him. No luck again. The Grand Poobah of Dermatology did not know what it was.

Finally, the patient came to me one last time and asked about seeing your father, and, of course, your father correctly diagnosed him and treated him.

My father more than “dabbled” in dermatology. He was pretty darn good.

Humility keeps him from saying that — so I will.

A to Z Blogging Challenge · About My Dad · family

C is for Cunningham

April 3, 2018 Sally3 Comments

C is for Cunningham. Glenn Cunningham, to be precise.

One of my father’s prize possessions is the following letter on University of Kansas letterhead stationery.

February 25, 1940

Dear Donald:

Your very good letter reached me several days ago and I was terribly sorry to hear of your accident. I hope that you are recovering satisfactorily without too much pain.

Those burns are painful and it sometimes takes a long time for them to heal. It took mine several months to even begin to get well. Just don’t let anything discourage you, fight your battle bravely and when you’re well you’ll be just that much better man for having had the experience. It sometimes takes things like these to make us fully appreciate good health and normal functioning of our entire bodies.

Take good care of yourself and do as your parents and you Doctor tell you to so you will get well without complications of any kind. It’s that dogged determination, the will to want to do a thing, that will make you successful in anything you want to do.

Best of luck and every good wish that you will be completely recovered very soon.

Your friend,
Glenn Cunningham

Glenn Cunningham had also included a picture with a note on the back:

“…When you are well and older I hope you beat that time.”

My father attended a 4-room school in Brookside, NJ through the 8th grade. The students had jobs to do at the school in addition to their studies. One day, when my father was 9 years old, he was doing his job of washing dishes and a shelf collapsed, spilling a large pot of boiling water on his legs.

I’m not sure who suggested it, but during his recuperation my father wrote a letter to Glenn Cunningham, a runner who had also suffered terrible burns to his legs as a boy. Glenn’s accident also took place at school when a stove exploded in the classroom. His brother Floyd died from the burns he suffered and doctors thought Glenn would never walk again.

When I read about Glenn Cunningham’s life, it reminds me of my father — a genuinely good man who used his life to help others. Glenn and his wife opened a ranch and helped raise over 10,000 foster children. My father had at least that many patients from walks of life and all socio-economic strata. Neither one prioritized monetary gain over service.

“It’s that dogged determination” and generosity of spirit that shaped both of their lives.

A to Z Blogging Challenge · About My Dad

B is for Boxing, Baseball, and Burl Ives

April 2, 2018 Sally8 Comments

I have the feeling that my father was more the scrapbooker than my mother.

From his childhood, he had albums with photos mounted using photo corners onto black paper and funny captions written in white. My mother simply kept memorabilia stashed in a drawer or box — a mish-mash of notes, photos, and newspaper clippings. I follow my mother’s ways.

No matter who actually compiled it, we have a huge scrapbook that follows my mother and father’s relationship from first dates to wedding to first child to internship appointment in Cooperstown. My father pulls it out from time to time and leafs through it. The scrapbook has fallen apart and been put back together so many times, though, that it’s no longer in the right order.

“What was I thinking?!” my father said while looking through the scrapbook recently. “I took your mother to a boxing match!”

Sure enough, he took her to several boxing matches. I’ve never understood the sport of boxing. It’s so barbaric — putting two guys in a ring and having them punch each other until one is unconscious.

He also took her to the Ice Follies. I think he redeemed himself with that one.

A hockey game — the Bruins v. Red Wings. This was on his birthday, so maybe my mother got those tickets as a birthday present for him.

And a baseball game — the Red Sox v Tigers. 60c each for bleacher seats (he saved the stubs), and my father faithfully kept score in the program. Final score 8 – 5, Boston.

My father always loved folk music. He told me once that he used to treat himself occasionally on payday to the newest Burl Ives record, purchasing it at a little record store somewhere near the hospital. We still have a lot of those records.

So I was delightfully surprised when I was looking through the scrapbook and saw that he and my mother had gone to see Paint Your Wagon at the Shubert Theater in Boston — starring none other that Burl Ives. I’ll bet he sang “Wandering’ Star” a lot better than Lee Marvin.

I try to remember what Bud and I did for our first dates. We didn’t go to boxing matches or any other sporting events. We went for walks. We went to an auction. We went to church. We went to the movie “Coal Miner’s Daughter” and had to wait in line to get into the theater. We went to the drive-in and locked ourselves out of the car.

But we didn’t keep a scrapbook to tell the story for future generations.

I’m thankful my parents did.

A to Z Blogging Challenge · About My Dad · family

A is for Army

April 1, 2018 Sally3 Comments

My father served in the United States Army.

I don’t think he would ever begin the story of his life at this point, but this is an alphabetical telling, not chronological. Plus, I was born during the Army years, so I suppose it’s a good place for me to start.

The Army helped pay for his medical school. In return, he gave them 6 years active duty.

One posting was in Eritrea, which at the time, was part of Ethiopia. My earliest memories are from Kagnew Station, the army base there. Those little fragments of memories hardly seem real. I rode camels. I sifted sugar to help in the kitchen. We had chameleons.

My early memories rarely include my father though. I imagine he was kept quite busy with his work.

He moved his way up through the ranks. This is one of my favorite pictures of my mom and dad from one of his promotion ceremonies.

When he left active duty, he didn’t fully leave the Army. For many years he belonged to an army reserve unit — the 414th Civil Affairs Battalion out of Utica. While in the reserves, he continued to study and move up in ranks, eventually becoming a Colonel. He called it a “full bird Colonel.”

“What comes after that?” younger me asked him.

“General,” he said, and I was duly impressed.

When he had put in whatever time he needed for a full retirement, he did just that.

These days he likes sorting things — emptying banks and sorting the coins, sorting through papers and photos, sorting pins of various shapes and sizes that he has acquired over the years.

At dinner the other night, he said to Karl, “I have a lot of insignia pins. I found a dish that had a whole bunch of them. Maybe you’ll have some use for them.”

I looked at the assortment he had spread over his dresser. Sure enough, those full-bird eagles were thrown in some pennies and nickels, a lucky 4-leaf clover, and a few caduceus.

He had forgotten the hard work that went into earning them. I’m not even sure he knew their significance. He was ready to give them away to anyone who seemed interested.

My dad was in the army, but I think he has forgotten it.

I remember, though.

I remember him shining his army boots on the night before reserve duty, and the smell of the boot black.

I remember how different he looked in his fatigues.

Mostly I remember feeling kind of proud that my father served in the army.

A to Z Blogging Challenge · dreams · family

2018 Blogging from A to Z: About My Dad

March 31, 2018March 31, 2018 Sally7 Comments

Tomorrow the A to Z Blogging Challenge starts. I missed the deadline for the Theme Reveal and I’m pretty sure I signed up twice. It makes me wonder how this year’s challenge will go.

Writing has been such a struggle lately. I can’t seem to find a chunk of time to write. Writing, or, for that matter, doing anything “in dribs and drabs,” as my mother used to say, is a challenge. It takes time to get into the right mindset and find the right words. For me, an interruption comes and I’ve been sent back to Monopoly/Writing Jail without collecting $200 or 200 words or anything.

Recently I had this horrible dream:

I was walking in a field with my family — my husband, my children, my siblings, and my father. The field grew swampy, and we were talking about how it hadn’t always been that way and how we planted corn on it in the past. The path was narrow and my father stepped too close to the swamp. As he fell in, the swamp became a deep hole full of water and I jumped in to save him. He was sinking so I swam beneath him to get his head to the surface so he could breathe. As I pushed him up to the surface, I felt myself running out of air. While underwater, I could see some family members sitting to rest, but they hadn’t noticed him falling in. No one was coming to rescue us. I couldn’t call for help because I was underwater. My father couldn’t call for help because he can’t think clearly. I realized that I needed air and I needed to get help, but to do that, I would have to let go of my father. I used all my strength to heave him up and then pushed myself toward the surface for a breath. He slid past me, like dead weight, and I grabbed his hands. Instead of reaching the surface, I went down, down, down into darkness.

Then I woke up. It was an awful dream. I don’t need a Joseph to interpret it, but it served as a warning.

To misquote an African proverb: It takes a family to care for the elderly.

I’m so thankful that I DO have a strong and supportive family. My brothers, my sister, my children, my husband all pitch in.

The other night, when my father fell around midnight, Karl was right there ready to help. He drove us to the hospital and then stayed with my father so I could go home and get a little sleep before I went to work at 5 AM. (My father ended up with stitches in his forehead and staples in his scalp. Everything else seems to be okay.) I know Karl wouldn’t let me drown.

Helen is taking days off from work to stay with my father so Bud and I can get away for a mini-vacation. She did the same thing back in January. She’s not going to let us drown.

And I need to make sure I ask for help BEFORE I’m underwater. (Lifesaving 101)

But back to the A to Z Challenge. I decided to adopt this theme: About My Dad.

Writing about who he was will help me with who he is.

Plus, he’s one of my favorite people in the whole world. I think you’ll like him, too.

I just have to make sure I carve out those chunks of time for writing.

Faith · photography · Uncategorized

A Little Bit of Narnia

March 29, 2018March 29, 2018 Sally6 Comments

Yesterday’s sunrise was pink and blue.

The day before it was orange and yellow.

I take so many pictures of the sunrise. I’ll be at the pool and one the ladies swimming will say, “Ooh! Sally! Get your camera!” I’ll grab my phone and step out the door into the cold for yet another sunrise photo.

It never grows old.

Here’s one of my favorites, looking in a slightly different direction:

I’m reading excerpts of Lamentations for Holy Week. Feeling the sadness of the Jewish people as they lament the destruction of Jerusalem sets the tone for the sadness Christians should feel as we approach Good Friday. I love the way C. S. Lewis, in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, described Aslan walking to the Stone Table

…one of the girls walked on each side of the Lion. But how slowly he walked! And his great, royal head drooped so that his nose nearly touched the grass. Presently he stumbled and gave a low moan.

“Aslan! Dear Aslan!” said Lucy, “what is wrong? Can’t you tell us?”

“Are you ill, dear Aslan?” asked Susan.

“No,” said Aslan. “I am sad and lonely. Lay your hands on my mane so that I can feel you are there and let us walk like that.”

And the girls did what they would never have dared to do without his permission but what they had longed to do ever since they first saw him — buried their cold hands in the beautiful sea of fur, and stroked it and, so doing, walked with him.

That part of the story is almost unbearable to me. Because even if I picture burying my cold hands in his mane, I know that soon the lion will be gone and my hands will be colder than before. It’s an awful feeling.

But Lamentations 3 holds one of my favorite passages — and arriving at it is like arriving at Easter morning.

²¹But this I call to mind,
    and therefore I have hope:
²²The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
    his mercies never come to an end;
²³they are new every morning;
    great is your faithfulness.

Every sunrise holds that promise for me. His mercies are new every morning. In Narnia —

There, shining in the sunrise, larger than they had seen him before, shaking his mane… stood Aslan himself.

The Narnian lampposts that line the driveways and parking lots at the pool extinguish themselves one by one every morning and I am left with a glorious sun. Even on the grayest days, I know it’s there — and it brings me hope.

Book Review

The Hate U Give

March 26, 2018 Sally5 Comments

The paper fluttered out of my Bible one morning.

I had written the following quote on it:

You may choose to look the other way, but you can never say again that you did not know.

William Wilberforce

William Wilberforce spoke those words to Parliament in 1789 as he told of the horrors of the slave trade.

The quote fit perfectly with the book I was reading, The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas. My friend Shannon had recommended it, and midway through she asked what I thought of it.

“It’s a brutal view into a world that I don’t know,” I told her.

And it is.

I grew up in a white town, attended a white school, had white friends. There’s nothing intentionally racist about that; it’s just a fact. Small upstate New York towns were predominantly white in the 60s and 70s.

At my father’s birthday party, a woman, while looking at one of his old yearbooks, said to me, “This is fascinating.”

“What?” I asked.

“His high school had two choirs — one white, one black,” she said.

I looked at the yearbook — the 1947 Cobbonian from Morristown High School. One page did feature two choirs: the Spiritual Choir and the Madrigal Choir.

The reverse side of the page featured the A Cappella Choir and the Training Choir, both of which were integrated — just barely — with less than a handful of people of color participating in either one.

“We’ve come a long way, haven’t we,” I said to the woman looking at the yearbook. She smiled and nodded.

But we still have a long way to go.

For the breadth of Angie Thomas’s book, I was allowed to stand in the shoes of a 16 year-old African-American girl, who grew up in the projects, who saw two friends gunned down, and who ultimately learned that her voice is her most powerful weapon.

I thought about the book this weekend when I saw the news coverage of students across the country participating in March for Our Lives Rallies against gun violence. They used words — and silence (after reading the names of the 17 students who died at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High, student Emma Gonzalez stood in silence on the stage for 6 minutes and 20 seconds, the amount of time it took the gunman to kill them).

I’ve read solutions to the gun problem that range from arming teachers, to supplying buckets of rocks in classrooms, to having therapy dogs in schools. Some sound disastrous; others seems inefficient and ridiculous; still others might work. I don’t know what the answer is —

But I do know it begins with talking and listening.

It begins with standing in the other person’s shoes, no matter what the issue is, if only for a moment.

After that, I can choose to look the other way.

But I can’t say I didn’t know.

I’m glad I read The Hate U Give.

Life

Not My Favorite Place

March 23, 2018 Sally6 Comments

“What happened to your hand?” my friend Kate asked.

I was reclining in a chair at one of my not-favorite places

What she asked about had happened at a new not-favorite place — the GI Lab.

It was a week of taking care of myself.

On Tuesday I had my first colonoscopy. After talking my way out of it for eight years, I finally lost my bargaining power and had to go.

The nurse chided me. “You should have come years ago,” she said.

I shrugged. I mean, really, what did she want me to say? I was there.

But, when she tried to put the IV in the back of my hand, she blew my vein.

Helen picked me up after the procedure (she was my designated driver) and I showed her my bruised hand.

“Just imagine that your daughter could have done that,” she said, and I understood her to say that every nurse has those moments when IVs don’t go perfectly. A little grace was in order. Thinking about that didn’t make my hand hurt less, but it made me complain a little less about it.

The bad part of a colonoscopy isn’t the IV, though. It’s the prep. It’s the low fiber diet followed by the clear liquid diet followed by the nothing diet. It’s the Miralax and the Dulcolax and the everything-else-lax. I found myself thinking about the scripture that talked about the less honorable parts of the body. (from 1 Corinthians 12)

On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think less honourable we bestow the greater honour, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty,which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honour to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honoured, all rejoice together.

I can tell you, from my colonoscopy prep, that when one part of the body suffers, the whole body really does suffer.

On Wednesday morning, when I drank my first cup of coffee in days, I rejoiced. It’s also true — when one part of the body rejoices, the whole body rejoices.

On Thursday, I went to the dentist. I do this every 6-8 years, whether I need it or not. I love my dentist. I just hate sitting in a chair feeling and hearing the scraping of metal against my teeth.

My not-favorite places. And two of them in one week!

Of course, I go to one of my favorite places every morning.

It’s beautiful to watch the sun reflect off the water.

Soon, when spring arrives, I’ll be able to visit another favorite place —

And if winter drags on, I have this favorite place –

Plus the really, really good news is that I don’t have to go for another colonoscopy for 10 years.

And I don’t have to return to the dentist immediately because I had no cavities. Of course, she’d like to see me every year, but I think I can stretch it out a little longer.

family · photography · poetry

Today Is Good

March 15, 2018 Sally13 Comments

I’d rather be right where I am today
Yes, I would
Yes, I would
Today is good

I’d rather keep in step with time than stay
Yes, I would
As I should
Today is good

Sometimes my heart begins to stray
To other times, to other days

My memories may not obey
This need to stay
Here in today

The day will come when I will say good-bye

Yes, it will
A moment still
And so until

I’ll lean into the sadness and I’ll sigh,
This is good —
For I have stood
Right where I should

Sometimes my heart begins to stray
To other times, to other days
My memories may not obey
This need to stay
Here in today
Here in today

My first thought when I saw the photo challenge was Simon & Garfunkel’s El Condor Pasa.

My second thought was wishing to go back in time to when my children were young and my parents were both still alive. I quickly realized that wasn’t a healthy road for me to go down.

So I ditched Paul Simon’s sparrows, snails, hammers, and nails, and wrote this about my need to stay in the moment.

family

Celebrate 88

March 13, 2018 Sally9 Comments

“This is such a great idea,” any number of people said the other day when we hosted a birthday party for my father at the Otesaga.

Not to be morbid, but the idea came from receiving lines at funerals. When my oldest brother died four years ago, I stood in a funeral receiving line for the first time. It felt like everyone had a story to tell about Stewart. I wished he could have heard them. He would have felt so loved.

When my mother died, the same thing happened. Person after person held my hand and told me a story about my mother and how much she meant to them. It gave me comfort to hear, but I wished my mother could have heard the stories too.

When Mr. Hanson, my 7th grade math teacher, died, his funeral was packed. The receiving line stretched out the door of the Vet’s Club and down the street. I wished I could have grasped his hand one last time, looked him in the face, and told him how much I appreciated him.

That’s why I started thinking about a party for my father.

I bounced the idea off my siblings. Before long, I was on the phone with the Otesaga. It had to be a strange call for their event planner.

Me: I’d like to have a birthday party for my father.

Planner: How many people do you expect?

Me: I have no idea.

Planner: I really need a number.

Me: I have no idea.

She worked with me.

I am so thankful for Brooke. She listened and guided and suggested.

For instance, she suggested that we use several adjoining rooms so it never felt crowded. She suggested we set up one room with comfortable seating, so my father could sit on a couch instead of a dining chair. She and her staff put out the decorations we had brought — books and photographs. She was wonderful.

The real quandary was how to get the word out. Friends of Bassett helped SO much. They blasted the invitation to retired physicians, current physicians, administration, and I forget who else. The local churches also helped to spread the word. As I ran into people at the grocery store or the gym or the post office, I invited them. It’s hard to corral a lifetime of people.

Among the first to arrive were two nurses from Dermatology, his last hold-out in his long and varied medical practice. He was delighted when he saw them.