Dash Stories

I have trained many family medicine residents and medical students over the past 25 years and every so often, a student or resident would complain to me about the poor conduct or attitude of a patient. There are certainly malevolent patients from time to time but MOST of the time what you simply have is a person who is scared, in pain and/or sick–certainly not at their best–and it is incumbent on the physician (or other healthcare professional) to rise above the rancor, be the professional, and minister healing. We need to cut our patients a little slack. We should realize patients often have serious questions and concerns about their health. They may not feel well. They can be afraid or embarrassed of what sort of privacy-invasive and/or painful exam, procedure or treatment they may be subject to. Being a patient can be a scary and intimidating experience and sometimes we, as physicians, lose sight of this.

Well, I’m telling you, there is no better antidote to this lack of awareness than for the physician to become the patient.

I had that opportunity recently. I’ve had a problem with kidney stones every so often for the past 20+ years and my latest duel with these evil beasts occured recently. The urologist told me he was “dismayed” to learn what was originally thought to be a single 3 mm stone in my right ureter, was actually at least 2 stones, one exceeding 6 mm, jammed back-to-back, like some sort of Beltway traffic jam. Simply taking pain meds, drinking lots of fluids and a daily Flomax wasn’t going to cut it. I needed a little help.

So, there I was–the patient and not the doctor.  

In preop, I put on a backless, drafty gown and an ugly pair of lemon-yellow anti-skid socks–nothing else. Then the IV was placed (3 attempts). Oh yes–I should mention the stirrups (guys get to use them too from time to time). Under general anesthesia, a cystoscopy with retrograde urethrogram, Holmium laser lithotripsy and right stent placement (Google it for details). Lovely post-anesthesia fog in recovery. Peeing blood and “sand” for a week. Cramps, urinary urgency, peeing constantly–dribble here, dribble there. A week later, another cystoscopy and stent removal. And many of the wonderful people taking care of me (doctors, nurses, technicians) were friends and/or patients of mine. But for all the pain, uncertainty, and “exposure,” the outcome was great and I’m extremely grateful for the care I received. I’m sure I was much better informed and aware than the typical patient but it was still a bit intimidating and pretty unpleasant.

So, to my patients: I have been reminded again. I get it.

To my colleagues: take my experience to heart and remember.

And to the American Academy of Family Physicians, the various medical specialty boards and state medical licensing authorities, I earnestly recommend continuing medical education (CME) credits for this.

Some of the best CME ever.

I graduated medical school in May of 1993 and moved from Missouri to the Florida Panhandle to start my family medicine residency. We were all excited about the move and the new adventure, but perhaps the most excited was our five-year-old daughter, Hannah . . .

“Are we in Florida yet?”  the little voice squeaked out from the back seat.

“No, Hannah, not yet.”

And so the conversation repeated itself throughout our trip south. Mercifully, we finally pulled through the tiny border town of Florala, Alabama and crossed into the Sunshine State. After a brief bit of family celebration, a clearly disappointed Hannah piped up from the back . . .

“Where’s the beach, Daddy?  Where’s Mickey and Minnie?”

Poor thing.  Northern Florida looked a lot like southern Alabama. Not at all like the glossy brochures of sugar-white beaches and Disney World.  But eventually we made it to Disney World that spring and by summer’s end, Hannah was an accomplished beach sandcastle builder.

By December, Disney World was a distant memory, the beach surf was too chilly to play in, and thoughts turned toward home, family and the familiar. We wouldn’t be able to make it home for Christmas. Hannah yearned for the familiar as well. On Christmas Eve, Hannah asked if we would get snow on Christmas Day.

I tried to let her down easy.  “No, honey.  It doesn’t snow here. Florida has lots of fun stuff like warm weather, beaches, and Disney World, but not snow.”

“But I want it to snow on Christmas!” pleaded Hannah.  Obviously beaches and Mickey were not enough.

Diana chimed in. “Hannah, It would take a miracle for that to happen. Maybe you could pray for snow.”

Secretly, I cringed.  My daughter was asking for the improbable, if not the impossible, and Diana was setting her up for disappointment. But I kept quiet. I’d like to say that as her father and (allegedly) her spiritual leader, I joined my faith with hers and prayed as well, but she and Diana were on their own.

So Hannah prayed.

“Lord Jesus, please let it snow on Christmas. Amen.”

It was just that simple.

The next morning, Hannah raced outside and started shrieking with delight. We rushed out to the front sidewalk to see what the commotion was all about.  Large 1-2 inch diameter snowflakes were floating down and little Hannah was running back and forth in the yard, mouth wide open, catching the flakes on her tongue.  The flurries lasted about 20 minutes and there was no accumulation. The sun was even shining.

But snow, it did.

Hannah was elated. “Daddy! Jesus sent us snow for Christmas!”

“Yes He did, sweetie.  Yes He did.”

At family gatherings growing up, my grandfather would whistle and fry his special fried chicken. The chicken was absolutely delicious and I’m convinced the whistling was an important, even essential, ingredient. Granddaddy told me he got the fried chicken recipe from a tiny restaurant in southern Louisiana he visited back in the 1960s. The restaurant had a large sign in the dining room proudly proclaiming:

“If the Colonel had our recipe he’d be a general.”

Apologies to KFC, but if you tasted this fried chicken, I know you’d agree this proclamation was not hyperbole.

Granddaddy died in 2001. Several years ago I did a quick Google search and discovered the name of a restaurant with that slogan on the wall –Chester’s Cypress Inn in Donner, Louisiana (population 126). The little restaurant was also known for its fried frog legs, onion rings and chicken gizzards. I am certain this was the restaurant. I had planned taking a pilgrimage to southern Louisiana to experience the fried chicken firsthand but I never made it. Unfortunately, I recently learned the restaurant had closed after nearly 80 years of operation.

Well, at least I have the recipe.

And I can whistle!

For those inquiring culinary minds, the recipe…

“Granddaddy’s Fried Chicken”

(“Chester Boudreaux‘s Fried Chicken”)

Take skinned chicken pieces** pat-dry and salt and pepper them. Put a cup of flour and 1/2 to one teaspoon cayenne pepper (more or less-adjust for taste) into a paper bag and bread the chicken pieces in the bag.  Fry the chicken pieces in hot vegetable oil and season with garlic powder as the pieces fry.

Oh yeah-a few more things: Make sure you whistle a happy tune as you fry the chicken. This is critical. And when your seven-year-old grandson “helps” you fry that chicken, be sure to give him a sample to taste before dinner and remind him to keep it a secret. It’s a tradition.

That’s all there is to it! Enjoy!

** I believe the skinned chicken version was a modification my grandfather made to make it healthier. He would’ve strongly recommended learning how to cut up a whole chicken fryer. Buying precut pieces (leg quarters, breasts, wings, etc.) would’ve been something akin to sacrilege according to Granddaddy.

https://www.houmatoday.com/news/20180620/chesters-cypress-inn-to-close-as-restaurant

https://www.myneworleans.com/chicken-at-chesters/

Diana and I were walking into the Home Depot. A middle-aged woman in a Grand Jeep Cherokee zipped right past us, parked in a handicapped parking space and jogged into the garden section of the store.

I was indignant.

“Just look at that, Diana! Can you believe it!

“Now, now Lowell, just let it go. Don’t say a word.” Diana tried to deescalate the looming confrontation.

“Oh, I have plenty to say! You just wait and see.”

“Please don’t, Lowell! Please don’t!” Diana implored.

I wasn’t deterred.

As we walked into the garden section, Diana, to no avail, tried to reason with me.

I found the lady next to the fertilizer and compost.

“Ahem, ma’am.”

The woman turned toward me. “Yes?”

“Is that your Jeep Grand Cherokee parked out front?”

“Yes, it is. Is something wrong? Did someone hit my Jeep?”

“Oh no, ma’am. The Jeep is fine. I was just wondering if you were the person registered against the handicapped tag hanging on the rear-view mirror?”

And then it all hit the fan…

“I’ll have you know that you do not have to be missing a leg or in a wheelchair to be handicapped!”

And so the tirade began–yelling, cursing, and screaming.  I looked around for Diana. She probably had to shop for something–anything not garden related. Perhaps drywall?  She was definitely MIA. Poor George in the orange apron at the garden checkout sheepishly turned away–to give us our privacy, I guess.

In the midst of my tongue-thrashing, she began to wheeze and cough. Always the doc, I took a quick assessment. Glancing down, I noticed a sternotomy scar peaking out from between the beet-red heaving cleavage of my verbal assailant—evidence of prior open-heart surgery. I quickly scanned the store for an AED. I thought she was going collapse right there.

The lady did not collapse. And thankfully, neither did I. She eventually stormed off in a wheezy huff.

I went to find Diana. I guess we had drywall to buy.

January 1992. I was a 3rd-year medical student at the University of Missouri-Columbia. Wife, four kids, one on the way. Lean times? Yes, absolutely.  But also great opportunities for God’s provision.

I was driving down Stadium Blvd at dusk one Friday after a long day at the hospital. The tiny Datsun sedan in front of me slammed into a large deer. I pulled up behind the vehicle. The front end was crushed but fortunately the driver was unharmed. I dragged the dead doe to the side of the road. Shortly, a city cop showed up and took a report.

After taking the report, the cop offered the dead deer to the driver—“I can write you a roadkill tag and you can have it butchered.”

“Oh no! I’m a vegetarian!” exclaimed the distraught college student.

At the ready, I stepped up and generously offered my services—“I’ll take the deer.”

And before you knew it, I had a roadkill-tagged large doe crammed in the trunk of my tiny 1982 Toyota Tercel, head and front hooves sticking macabrely out the back end. I got home that evening and strung the deer up in the tree behind the house and gutted the animal making great use of newly acquired surgical skills. My 4-year old daughter, Hannah, watched with horror from the upstairs window having just enjoyed the movie “Bambi.” “Daddy’s killing Bambi’s mommy!” she cried. The next day I delivered the carcass to the butchers and we ate venison for the next several months.

About a year later, after a night on call in the hospital, I was traveling down the same stretch of road on an early winter morning and there was another large dead deer on the side of the road. I headed home. Diana was still in bed.

“Diana, there’s a dead deer on the side of the road on Stadium.”

“Don’t you even think about it, Lowell!!”

“Oh, I’ve been thinking about it. A lot! It is 10 degrees outside. If that deer is still warm, that deer is mine.”

I collected the deer from the side of the road and took it to the butcher that day. We ate venison until medical school graduation.

Just call me Dr. Roadkill. Others have.

(I do draw the line at opossum, skunk, and armadillo)

God provides.

True story.

It was a sunny, spring day in 1983. I was  a sophomore at the University of Missouri-Rolla. Walking along the Quadrangle, I happened upon a lanky black man seated on a bench. He was dressed in holey, high-water pants, an off-color, formerly white T-shirt, ratty army fatigues jacket, and well-worn tennis shoes, a few sizes too big, with more than just a few toes showing. At his feet was a rumpled, paper grocery sack. In his lap, an open Bible.

I walked by him and wished him a polite “What’s up?” He was quick and eager to respond. . .

“I’ve been jest sittin’ here and prayin’ ‘n aksin’ the Lawd so send someone by to invite me home fo’ dinna and a showa.” Through the thick drawl, it was clear– He caught me and there was no escape. I agreed.

Robert Taylor was down-on-his-luck, illiterate, homeless. He sat in my sparsely furnished college basement apartment later that day and began to tell me his story:

“The Lawd is a teachin’ me to read and He’s a teachin’ me to write.”

He opened his tattered Bible and began “reading” out loud. Not the words on the page in front of him but rather memorized Scripture from elsewhere in the Bible. He then reached into his rumpled, grocery sack and pulled out a dog-eared spiral notebook. The first page had the child-like printed scrawl of the same repeated sentence over and over again: “I love God.” The next page was the repeated sentence: “God loves I.” The next page: “Africa loves God.” And the next page, “God loves Africa.”  The letters were printed mimicking his Bible’s font—e.g. the a’s and g’s were written to resemble the actual printed font as opposed to typical hand-written letters.

His simple dinner and shower turned into an extended three-week stay. One evening, he was cooking dinner. Pork chops. The chops were sizzling in the pan and Robert was preaching, his bible in one hand, wildly swinging the the grease-coated spatula back and forth with the other. Pointing at me with the greasy utensil, he exclaimed:

“Yo Christians grab yo perty Bible and goes to church. Yo comes home and puts it on da shelf. Yo picks up yo perty Bible and goes to Bible study or Wednesday night church. And yo comes home and puts it on da shelf. And yo does it all da time, ovah and ovah, week after week!”

And with tears streaming down his dark cheeks, he continued, still pointing the greasy spatula at me. . .

“But you know what bugs me? Yo Christians don’t know da Word. And you know what REALLY bugs me? YO can read and YO can write!” He began to cry bitterly,  slumping to his knees, clutching his old tattered Bible.

Sinking into the couch, I felt pretty small.

Conviction.

Robert left without so much as a good bye a few days later.