Walkin’ Fartin’ Fran

Posted on February 12, 2025 by deconstructingdoctor

One of my mom’s best friends when I was growing up was named Charlie. Charlie’s partner was named Mark. Their kids were Dobermans. My mom’s other friends were black, Indian, hispanic and white. Some were married, some weren’t. One of her friends adopted a baby boy from Vietnam. My mom kept the newspaper clipping that showed him arriving in America.

In our neighborhood, our next door neighbors were from Honduras and the neighbors across the street were from Puerto Rico. The Puerto Ricans taught me how to break dance on cardboard laid out on the driveway.

One of the ladies on the block was an old Jewish lady with a New York accent. My dad would look out the window and say, “There goes Walkin’ Fartin’ Fran.” I would jump up off the couch and run to catch up to her. We would walk together nightly, she would fart, and we would tell each other stories.

One of my best friends was an immigrant from Korea being raised by a single dad. Another was first generation Italian American. Another was half Jewish. 

I say these things because at the time, none of this occurred to me, it is only in retrospect that I see the differences, but to me there were no differences. This is the world that I knew, the world that shaped how I think, believe, react, love. 

I wasn’t raised in the church, but as a kid, I asked to go to church. My parents didn’t want to go, so they just dropped me off. It’s kind of funny to think of it now. I went to church alone, but I did know other kids there. Claudia’s dad would drop her and her brother off, too. I think her dad was self conscious being from Korea and not understanding the language well. He waited in the parking lot until service was done. 

So the 3 of us would sit together in the pew like little orphans. 

I liked to go to church. I liked the singing and the talking, the way the preacher’s voice would raise and lower, somber one moment and punctuated with excitement the next. But no one talked to me. Except Claudia, of course. No one asked me to tell them my stories like Walkin’ Fartin’ Fran did. I kept going anyway. I was baptized, confirmed. Now I was one of them, but knew none of them and none of them knew me. Except Claudia. 

To the people that may have been seen as outsiders, I was counted as one of them, embraced, seen and heard. To the ones on the inside, the ones that were teaching about the selfless love of Jesus, I was treated like an outsider. His message still got through, though, in spite of them.

After my mom passed away, I received a Christmas card in the mail from Charlie and Mark. I realized I had never told them that she had died. I sat down to write them a letter. Ironically, Charlie and Mark were still together over 40 years later, and my own parents were not. I felt compelled to tell them what they had meant to me as a kid. They were an example of deep committed love to another human being. Their love transcended societal norms, cultural taboos, and even religious ideology. They just didn’t give a fuck what anyone thought. They stuck it out. They loved each other and I got to be a part of their lives.

What a blessing.

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Complicit

Posted on December 11, 2024 by deconstructingdoctor

The American healthcare system is complicated. I often wonder if I am complicit in its abuses because I am a doctor. 

I get a paycheck every 2 weeks for my services to patients that are part of the hospital system that is my employer. I do not get paid more to write more prescriptions, refer patients to other doctors, or order more labs/tests. I get paid for how I code the patient’s visit. The more complicated the patient or visit, the higher the code and the bigger the charge. In complete transparency, I have no idea how this gets calculated. I have no idea if I am being short changed by my employer. In some ways, I prefer to be ignorant, I NEVER want to be aware that if I code X I get paid Y. It might change the way I practice. I might be inclined to fudge the charges just to make more money.

It gets complicated because I work for a hospital system that gets paid from the insurance company by how I charge. The insurance company also dictates how I practice by limiting my ability to order tests/labs, medications, or make referrals because of the cost to the insurance company. They can deny my tests, referrals, and medications. When they deny my orders, the patient would have to pay for this themself or not get the care they need. 

I have made phone calls over the years to battle the denials. Sometimes I am successful, sometimes I am not. My office employs a full time position to battle medication denials. I can think of many people over the years that had delays in care that directly impacted their outcomes. I have also changed my practices over the years knowing what will be denied. For instance, if a patient has back pain, the typical scenario is: 1. Try meds first 2. If not better get an X-ray 3. If not better, refer to PT 4. Try to get an MRI but if denied send them to Ortho/Neuro. I have to do this EVEN if I know getting an MRI first is the right step. This delays care, delays diagnosis, and delays healing.

In one of my jobs, my role placed me in a position to meet with CMOs (Chief Medical Officers) of insurance companies every quarter.  Because I am a little mouthy, when I first met  them, I said, you know you work for the enemy now. I actually felt sorry for them. In their positions they no longer work with patients. Their goal is to decrease medical spend which seems reasonable on the surface. Medical spend is out of control. However, by tying to decrease medical spend, they are actually withholding care. Or they are creating convoluted algorithms  (like the back pain scenario) for providers to follow to slow the care provided hoping the patient and provider just gives up. 

These were decent people who once took an oath to do no harm. Some of them felt they were fighting the good fight from within the insurance company. And I believe that they where. It’s a losing battle unfortunately because profits, bottom lines, and savings are the ultimate goal, NOT patient care or health outcomes. 

How am I complicit? It’s hard to keep fighting. I get tired. Who has time to make all these calls? Who has time to keep following up and pushing back against each company for each patient? I have changed my practices. When I study for my boards, I have to remember there are 2 different ways to practice medicine. There’s the right way when you order the right test for the right complaint and then there is the wrong way. The wrong way follows the money. The wrong way limits healthcare access and timeliness of care. The wrong way hurts people and prolongs their pain. 

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Banned

Posted on February 4, 2022 by deconstructingdoctor

Book banning has been a major topic of all of my feeds lately. I have to admit, I have never read “Maus” by Art Spiegelman which has made recent headlines after a school board in McMinn County, Tennessee banned the book from the 8th grade curriculum because of swear words and depictions of nudity. Of course, the theme of the atrocities of the holocaust probably factored into the decision. Since I haven’t read “Maus,” I wonder which swear words are used. I must shamefully admit that my children have probably heard worse from their own mother’s mouth. 

My mom was a big reader. She had book shelves everywhere, filled with hardcover books, only. She never read soft cover books. She liked the feel of the hard cover, substantial, formidable, weighted with words. I recall combing through her books when I was younger (probably 12 years old) and picking out one called “Fatal Vision” by Joe McGinnis. She also had a really enticing VC Andrews book called “Flowers in the Attic.” These were the first books I remember reading cover to cover. A lifelong obsession with Stephen King would follow, not because my mother loved his books, but precisely because she didn’t like Stephen King. It made me want to read his books even more. If asked today, who my favorite author is, I would say King without hesitation or fear of judgement. Is he on the same level as Shakespeare? Why, of course.

I am fascinated with themes of fear and bravery, good and evil. King showed me that good people can do bad things and heroes can be flawed. 

King has only banned one of his own books from publication, “Rage,” which he wrote in 1977 and published under the pseudonym Richard Bachmann. The story was about a school shooter and told from his perspective. King was appalled when his book was noted to be a source of inspiration for at least 5 school shootings that occurred in the 80’s and 90’s. He would later write a book called “Guns” that was inspired by the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings with all proceeds from the sales going to the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. 

I read to my children most every night. We have read so many books from “Harry Potter” to “Lord of the Rings” to “A Wrinkle in Time.” Right now, we are reading “To Kill a Mockingbird,” one of my favorite books of all time. Interestingly enough, this book has been banned from 8th grade curriculums, too, because of the N word and depictions of rape. This will be the third time I’ve read this book. When I read out loud, I don’t say the N word. It is the most uncomfortable word I know, it feels wrong in my mouth. For all the words that are in the book, this word appears about 50 times. 

When Scout asks her father Atticus about the N word, he replies, “Ignorant, trashy people use it when they think somebody’s favoring Negroes over and above themselves,” he tells Scout. “It’s slipped into usage with some people like ourselves, when they want a common, ugly term to label somebody.”

Harper Lee knew the power of the word and she understood the racial context that it was used in the south by white folks. She once wrote a letter to the local paper of a school board that banned her book. Here’s a copy of her short, but succinct letter. I absolutely chuckled at the end.

Editor The News Letter:

Recently I have received echoes down this way of the Hanover County School Board’s activities, and what I’ve heard makes me wonder if any of its members can read.

Surely it is plain to the simplest intelligence that “To Kill a Mockingbird” spells out in words of seldom more than two syllables a code of honor and conduct, Christian in its ethic, that is the heritage of all Southerners. To hear that the novel is “immoral” has made me count the years between now and 1984, for I have yet to come across a better example of doublethink.

I feel, however, that the problem is one of illiteracy, not Marxism. Therefore I enclose a small contribution to the Beadle Bumble Fund that I hope will be used to enroll the Hanover County School Board in any first grade of its choice.

Harper Lee

What we teach our children matters. The simplest lesson I know is that the world is not fair. Bad things happen to good people. Sometimes, good people can do bad things and bad people can do good things. Try to do good in everything that you do. Try to fight the good battles that lift people up. When you have a voice, use it to help others. You will be afraid, but you must concur that fear. Do not let it rule you. Do not let it silence you. Step into the fear. Own it. Read the books. Then let’s talk about it. I will not silence you.

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Change

Posted on September 15, 2021 by deconstructingdoctor

To be honest, I hate to see summer end. I am not the one to post memes about long cool nights, hoodies, campfires, and hot cocoa. I love the summer. I love the long hot days, the sound of the cicadas in the trees, big sips of sweet tea and crunching the ice that sneaks past my lips. I love running on my trail in the summer, watching the flowers bloom and the bugs flitter about. I love trying to outrun the horseflies. I don’t love the horseflies. Those suckers hurt when they bite, but I do love to outrun them. 

I spent the first part of my life in one long continuous summer, just a few miles from the beach, really a simple bike ride. I never knew a winter day or a fallen leaf. It was always summer. The beach was the same in December and July. Warm and consistent. That’s summer to me. That’s the feeling of my youth. 

I felt the slightest bit of sadness on my trail this week. The shadows are growing longer, a few more leaves have littered my way. I didn’t see any horseflies, although I won’t shed a tear for them. The light is fading. Soon we will be turning the clocks back or forward, I never remember which and it will be dark out even earlier. The park will close when it gets dark and I will miss my trails for a while. I won’t be able to get there after work in time. I will have to just go on the weekends. Even then, I probably won’t since it will not only get darker earlier, but colder. 

The cold and dark will have their time and I will retreat back into the cave of my home. Living in one long summer for the first half of my life, I never appreciated the dark. It has its time, too. I fought it back for a long time. Now I just begrudgingly welcome it. 

I’m watching the trail change right before my eyes. The leaves in the trees thin, I can see deeper into the woods. The flowers fall. The animals recede into the shadows, the little fawns that I’ve watched grow, catching glimpses of them all summer in the forest as I run by, are losing their spots, they look like awkward teenagers. 

The trail is changing. Preparing. Making a way for the next season. I can feel that change is in the air. 

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Fire Works and Fireflies

Posted on July 4, 2021 by deconstructingdoctor

We took a day trip into the mountains to kayak down a river yesterday. 

The real reason we went, though was to celebrate the 50th wedding anniversary of my husband’s aunt and uncle. Over the holidays, his uncle proposed to his aunt again and then the family planned a surprise renewal of the vows at their weekend home on the river. With the backdrop of the July 4th holiday, pandemic almost in the rearview mirror, the entire family arrived to mark the milestone.

50 years. It almost boggles the mind. Many of us do get married, some more than once. I imagine most people think it will be forever. The beginnings of any romantic relationship can feel like 4th of July fireworks. Explosive, awe-inspiring, heart pounding. That kind of love doesn’t last. It just can’t. It can’t be July 4th every day for 50 years. It is too much. It burns out. It implodes. It fizzles out. It’s a dud. But it can be July 4th sometimes. Even if it is once a year.

We loaded up the kayaks and inner tubes and drove them to the river head and floated down to the property where the wedding was about to take place. The day was glorious, almost cloudless. The bluest skies in the world hang over North Carolina. The water was ice melt cold and the sun danced behind the trees making patterns on the choppy water. People lined the banks; families, parties, corn hole and beer. America at it’s finest. 

Weddings are beautiful. I’ve never been to a bad one. I’ve been to ones with bad food or bad music or no alcohol, but the spirit of the event has always been beautiful. This was no exception. Celebrating love that has stood the test of time is truly a gift. It’s easy to celebrate the beginnings of something. All the potential is there, none of the mistakes or missteps.

Whenever we go to the mountains, I HAVE to drive. If I didn’t, I would be turning green, vertigo setting in and likely puking on the side of the road. The roads are so damn squirrelly, turning and weaving, up and down. Sometimes the edge of the road is right at the edge of the mountain and I can see how high up we are. I’m feeling waves of nausea just thinking about it. 

On the way home, it started to get dark. I frowned. The only thing worse then driving squirrelly mountain roads, is driving them in the dark. Just as I was about to complain out loud, that magical moment at twilight happened, where the hints of blinking lights caught in my peripheral vision. Bobbing and dancing in the weedy flowers at the side of the road, I see the fireflies come alive.

As the night grew darker, the fireworks began to appear in the distance. For a brief moment, the fireflies and the fireworks were simultaneously competing for my attention. The grandeur of a dozen different fireworks displays was easy to see. I looked around the car to tell everyone to look, but at least 2 were asleep and the third was on the iPad with headphones in so I was basically alone. I oohed and ahhed to myself. It occurred to me that in the darkness, the fireworks and the fireflies both served the same purpose. They both gave light in the dark. They both illuminated the way.  They were both a celebration. Love lights the way and the darkness retreats. 

I’m not going to lie, that fireworks kind of love will rock your world, it will take your breath away and give you a bounce in your step. But I have a new appreciation for the firefly kind of love. It flickers softly in the weeds at the edge of the dark. It’s the kind of love that lasts a lifetime.

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Ghosts

Posted on June 27, 2021 by deconstructingdoctor

I am finding myself reminiscing about the old days. This is not something I typically do or even relish. I actually don’t like thinking about the past. Too many ghosts.

I have certain reoccurring dreams. One of them is that I have to go to the bathroom really bad, like pee my pants kind of bad. I go into to the public restroom and it is an absolute disgusting mess. Stall doors are gone, toilet paper everywhere, seats are wet, not flushed. You get the picture. But I’ve really got to go, so I have to figure out what to do. Do I hover over the seat, try to pee without sitting down? Do I just go back outside and pee behind a tree? Sometimes I try to figure out what my dreams mean, this one I haven’t figured out yet.

Another dream I have is that I have been going to classes all year, but totally forgot about one of them. I just didn’t go. Now I have a test, I can’t remember where the class is, what the subject was, and now I think I won’t graduate. My 30 year high school reunion is in the not so distant future, so this dream is tapping into some long held anxieties. Ghosts of high school past.

But my favorite dream is when I am looking through junk stores or abandoned buildings. I am alone. I am searching. I am looking for treasure. Most of the time I find treasure, but sometimes I find ghosts.

I didn’t dream anything last night that I can remember. I’m up early. Too early for a Sunday. I like this time because I am alone. I am searching. I am looking for treasure. I am clicking on keys, punctuating each sentence with a sip from my perfectly honey-sweetened black hot tea. I am remembering a dream I had last week. I was searching through a junk store. Shelves piled high, heaps on the floor, I turned a corner and there was my mother. Bright eyes, full color in her cheeks, white hair, thick and beautiful (her hair was brown and thinned in real life). The realization of seeing my mom again after so long, just brought instant tears to my eyes.

“Mom!!”

“Hi Kimmy.” Her bright blue eyes in wide surprise, big welcoming smile.

“Mom, (now full boo-hoo-ing) where have you been?”

“Oh, you know. But really it’s not as much fun as you’d think. I kind of like it here.”

And then she turned the corner, I followed after her, but she was gone.

I woke up with tears in my eyes and a catch in my throat. She was so close. The veil was so thin. Just another ghost knocking around in my haunted house of a mind. Most of the time the ghosts are quiet, they keep to themselves and I keep to myself. Something has them stirred up. Is it them or is it me? Am I searching? Am I looking for long buried treasure?

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Jar-ring and Farting

Posted on February 6, 2021 by deconstructingdoctor

I have this affinity for old things collected in glass jars. I love jars full of buttons, screws and metal bits, watch parts, shiny rocks, beads, and broken jewelry. I use all of these things in this little weird side art project I have of making creepy dolls. I love to see things in jars. It creates a strange aesthetic, like a mad scientist’s laboratory.

I try to imagine where this fetish started. I can only recall my grandfather’s garage with strange metal parts in grimy jelly jars stacked willynilly on the dusty shelves. I also think of my neighbor, Mrs. Nick, with her jewelry boxes filled with gaudy beaded old lady jewelry that she would let me pick through without fussing over my shoulder the way so many old ladies would over their prized possessions when little fingers fuddle. I still remember how she kept her earrings in the same kind of storage my dad and grandfather kept their screws and nails, a plastic bin with drawers, so many drawers, each with a little treasure inside. I was very little and very independent. It was the 80’s and I would walk across the street to Mrs. Nick’s house whenever I wanted. She always welcomed me and let me rummage through her jewelry. What a saint.

Next door to Mrs. Nick was Mildred. Mildred taught me to play the organ. I would walk over to her home once a week for my lesson. This was not quite as much fun. She was a sweet lady, but I could not rummage through her things. I had to be polite and sit on the bench trying to stretch my tiny fingers over all of those keys. The sound of the organ was ominous, although at that age, I would not have known why the music made me feel like I was going to get in trouble. The sound of the piano would have been more welcoming and soothing, uplifting and jolly, but not the organ. It was deep and honking, otherworldly and foreboding.

The organ had an orange button that you had to turn on, it needed electricity, how modern. Looking back, it would have been really cool if she had a candelabra on the organ, but she didn’t, just a doily with a little vase full of plastic flowers and a picture of her dead husband staring at us.

On the other side of Mrs. Nick was Fran. Every night, Fran would walk the neighborhood. If I was outside playing, I would run up to Fran and walk with her. I am sure I would ramble on about all the happenings of my life, while she would occasionally ask questions about my friends, my studies. She would talk about her dead husband. He was a tile man. I didn’t know what that meant, but I listened politely.

Poor Fran. I really did enjoy walking with her, except for one little flaw. Fran farted. A LOT. It was as if there was a fart button on the bottom of her foot. Every time she stepped, I would a hear a fart. You might think, well obviously she had a squeaky shoe, and I would say, do squeaky shoes also smell like a fart? Apparently, I was seriously lacking in friends, because despite her affliction, I still walked and talked with Fran every chance I got. Unfortunately, behind her back, my parents and I called her Farting Fran, because they noticed it, too, I wasn’t the only one.

Fran invited me to her home one day and that’s when I found out what a tile man was. I know a child’s mind can be quite inventive, but when I tell you that every surface in her home was covered with tile, I am not exaggerating. Her coffee table, end tables, shelves, and chair seats were all covered with those tiny mosaic tiles. It was strange, overwhelming and quite beautiful. She was absolutely and completely surrounded by tile. It gave me the sense of heaviness, concrete and weighted. Her back yard was even worse. The ground, the tables, sculptures, all covered with tile. Her husband was dead, but his creations remained and they were too heavy to move, that was what she told me. She was small and frail and his memory loomed heavy, too heavy to move. He too, had broken bits of things in jars. Colors of tile sorted and marked, ready for the next project that would never be started.

Why did Fran keep all those jars? Maybe she liked the idea of the potential of all those broken pieces. She could stare at them and imagine her dead husband’s spirit returning to finish his life’s work of covering the whole world with tile. Potential still exists in those jars. I think that is the appeal. The broken bits still have work to be done.

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I’ve had it up to hair

Posted on January 31, 2021 by deconstructingdoctor

About a month before the initial lockdown response, I got my hair cut. I wanted something cute and sassy. I typically cut and color my own hair, I’ve done it for years, but this time I wanted a professional to do it. I walked into a local beauty shop and the hairdresser just happened to have another customer cancel, so she worked me in. It took hours. For most of the time, I had to pee. We made small talk. She had weird ideas about healthcare, like the array of essential oils that she featured at her desk, but I didn’t judge (much). Upon picking up my kids from school that afternoon, my daughter promptly turned to me and said, “You look like someone that would ask to speak to the manager.”

Fast forward one month, my cut needed to be freshened up, and then lockdown happened. What was a girl to do? Well, this girl reverted back to her old ways and started cutting and coloring her hair again. At first, I mimicked the work of the hairdresser. I kept close to her pattern and was able to maintain the original design. Over time, my cut morphed into its current shape which is “spikey middle aged lady.” For some reason, I have found myself donning this haircut during other times in my life.

The first time I had spiked hair was in college. And yes, I did it myself. It was the 90’s and I could color the short do in all kinds of funky colors. If I damaged the hair, wait a month and I could cut it again. The only by product was that I confused the frat boy types in my class. I recall sitting in front of a pair of jocks, who I overheard discussing my sexual orientation. “I think she’s gay.” I just shrugged. I really didn’t care what they thought. I had a boyfriend and they weren’t my type, anyway.

Later in residency, my hair morphed again into spike mode. I had absolutely no time to go get my hair cut, so I started cutting it myself again. It was short, fun, and I was in the mood for sassy.

As patients see my hair after we have all been in lockdown, I get the strangest responses:

  • Patient: You got your haircut
  • Me: Yes I did
  • Patient: Staring at me
  • Me: Staring at them
  • Me: OK. Well, let’s talk about your labs
  • Me: walks into the room
  • Patient: bursts into gales of laughter
  • Patient: Did you stick your finder in a light socket?
  • Me: laughing just to be polite, but really how many times can I hear this same joke?
  • Me: talking about their labs, their overall health, etc
  • Patient: not looking at my eyes, but staring at my hair with a look of confusion
  • Patient: (looking at my hair and out of nowhere says….) It’s like you are a porcupine. Like you are trying to say, “I want the fuck out of here. Leave me the fuck alone. Don’t fuck with me.”

That was my favorite response. I actually think she was able to put into words why my hair looks like this. Especially when I think back at the other moments in my life where this haircut found its way in. For now, I will embrace the anarchy and anger of my haircut. When I look in the mirror, I think my haircut actually looks like the COVID virus itself with all those spike protein sticking out. That’s how it gets into our cells. That’s how it starts the process of killing us. I think I subconsciously made my hair look like COVID as a way to take control of a time in my life that feels very out of control.

Basically, like my patient pointed out, my hair is saying, “fuck you, COVID.”

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Faith and Fairies

Posted on January 20, 2021 by deconstructingdoctor

At some point, one just has to get out of the funk. One just has to say OK, kid, wash your face, comb your hair and put down the junk food, it’s time to see the sun again. Today could be that day. Ding dong the witch is dead. Or maybe she’s just been locked in her castle. There’s still a chance she can wreak havoc. All those flying monkeys with their Back the Blue and Don’t Tread on Me flags. They are just thinly veiled swastikas, their hot breath of hate in your face, snarling in the wind.

I am tired in a way that I never knew I could be. I think it’s my age. I feel really old. Especially this year. I feel it in my knees and I see it under my eyes. And where did these back rolls come from? I feel it in my never ending desire to stick my middle finger up at the TV. How did I get here?  

I am disappointed. I am angry. I am in mourning. 400,000 Americans are gone today. Some of them I knew. It didn’t have to get to this. It still could get worse.

So where does the positive, uplifting part come in? That remains to be seen. I have faith. 4 years is a long time for hate to thrive. It’s been really hard to watch, even harder to watch Christians fan the flames of hate and division while simultaneously lamenting about how the world suppresses them, hates them. I am one of them and I don’t see it. I live in a country with freedoms and I have never felt my faith suppressed. I am free to practice my faith. What I’m not free to do is make you practice my faith, subject you to my beliefs. 

Today is a new day. It’s a good day. I’m going to let some of my anger dissipate today. I’ve been trying to do that more and more. 

One of my favorite Bible verses is James 1:9

Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger

My middle finger needs to read that again, also that part of my brain that defaults to the “F” word in quick succession, and the parts of my face that sqinches up in disgust, highlighting the lines around my eyes, in between my nose, and around my mouth. That queasy feeling in my stomach also needs to read that again. 

Let me leave you with a positive story. Heartwarming if you will. Of course it involves my mom. I know I should get over her loss, too, but alas I am a work in progress and that shit isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. So my mom left a bin full of fairy garden houses, little miniature chairs, tables, fences, and figures. She was planning to make a garden with my kids, but never got a chance to do it. During the pandemic, me and the kids took out that bin and we made a fairy garden.

We actually had to move all the figures and houses and little furniture after a big rainstorm because where we first placed the garden got washed out. So we placed it around a tree that we planted in her honor after she died This was such a better place anyway. I have added other houses and figures and the fairy garden expands all the time. I have hung lights in the tree, bird houses that we’ve painted, and Christmas ornaments. It’s actually quite obnoxious and it’s in our front yard, but it gives me joy and makes me smile. I think it makes the kids smile, too. It’s hard to tell with them, they are getting older and that childlike twinkle is dimming. 

I am trying to capture it in a bottle for all of us. The fairy garden does not invoke middle fingers or “F” words. I’d like to move in and live there forever. It’s an escape. I told the kids I’d like to put fairy gardens all over town, just collect little houses and figures from junk stores and put them in public places. They think I’m crazy, but I saw the twinkle in their eyes for a brief moment.

So keep your eyes out for little fairy towns near you (perhaps you would be inspired to do the same?). I hope you find ways to dissipate the yucky feelings that have wormed their way in over the past 4 years. I hope you find ways to listen, be slow to anger and quick to forgive. Here’s to better days ahead.

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The Truth Hurts

Posted on January 16, 2021 by deconstructingdoctor

I get up pretty early, even on the weekends. It’s automatic even if I try to sleep-in, the best I can do is 7:30. I like the time in the morning before the sun rises, before my family stumbles out of bed and begins their demands, “can I have a pop tart?” 

Sometimes, I waste the time by staring at Facebook, usually with a hot cup of tea in hand. Sometimes I read articles and try to wrap my head around the absolute lack of leadership that has led us to almost 400,000 COVID deaths in the US. I scoff at the voices that raise up and say it’s not real. I know they just can’t face the truth. Facing the truth about COVID would mean facing the truth about other things like the fact that the president is a con artist and then their whole worlds would fall apart. Instead they wrap themselves up in the warm snuggly blanket of conspiracy theories that continue to guard them against the cold hard facts of reality.

We all do that to some degree. I do it. I call it survival. 

We lost one of our coworkers this week. Sunday night. I worked that day in the Urgent Care that our clinic has on the weekend. I drove by the hospital where I knew she was laying and tears welled up in my eyes. I said a prayer to God. She had been in that building for close to a month, on a ventilator, her family informed that her time on this earth was growing thin, decisions would have to be made. No one wants to make those decisions about the people they love. I feel like we have made a contract with God somewhere in this fine mess that those are His decisions to make, not ours. He should take that out of our hands, but alas, it does not always work out that way. Greater plan, I guess. 

My prayer was this, “God please don’t let her suffer. Keep her or take her, but please end her suffering.”

That night she passed. 

I found out the next morning. I work in a big office with lots of providers and nurses. We all felt utter shock. Numb. I wanted to just have a day to myself, but there were patients to see, messages to answer. We were still in a pandemic and my job that day was to work in the respiratory clinic seeing all of the potential COVID infected patients. I would not be able to ignore COVID that day and what it had taken away. I would have to stuff my feelings down for a while, ignore the facts and do my work as usual. 

The irony is that she contracted COVID just mere days from getting the first COVID vaccine. The week of her death, I had received my second shot. She was so close. As I sit here, it is impossible for me to wrap my head around the utter waste of life over the past year. This virus is nothing like the Flu. All those people that would post bullshit stats about the flu and COVID in those early days saying how they were equally harmful, I just want to throat punch them. You idiots. You thought you knew something and you had no fucking idea. 

Looking back over my career (spanning close to 17 years if you count residency), I can think of one patient that I have lost to Flu. I can think of at least 3 that I’ve lost in the past month to COVID. 

I’ve stuffed my feelings down pretty well. It’s one of the perks of my job, if you want to call it a perk. It may be a liability, at least to the human part of me. I’m really good at keeping up my emotional guard. How much terror, sadness, loss, angst, sorrow, grief, distress, anxiety, sleep deprivation, horror, despair can one person really process?? Turns out a lot. Especially this year. Turns out I can absorb a lot, but for how much longer? Hopefully, not much. The vaccines are here. The rollout has been less than stellar, but they are here and people are getting them. There is a glimmer of hope. Lives will be saved and I have to look at that. I turn my eyes to the hope and not the despair, it’s the only way through.

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