June 23, 2014 Sunday "Do nothing"

First Words

      …thoughts of an anachronistic, solo pediatrician

                            by Glenn Feole, M.D.

"Be careful too that the reading of your story makes the melancholy 

        laugh and the merry laugh louder," Cervantes, Prologue to Don Quixote

Contact: ishmaelish36@gmail.com

Blog site: ishmaelish36.blogspot.com

June 23, 2014  Sunday

Chief Complaint: (written on the chart before I go in the room)

“Do nothing.”  (impression from an ENT consult)

Interesting Name:

Perferio

Anecdote:

A very attractive Grandmother was here with her daughter and her new Granddaughter for the two week check up.  She was quiet and held herself in a reserved, almost royal manner.  Probably from her long years of being an ICU nurse.  

Lilly was her first grandchild.  I asked her what her name was going to be as a Grandmother.  

“I’m going for Tootsie.”

                    Septemer, 2007, South Carolina

George Joiner's sister, from "A Trip to the Met"
that I wrote and illustrated.

Poetry:

Harmony in the Boudoir

by Mark Strand

After years of marriage, he stands at the foot of the bed and
tells his wife that she will never know him, that for everything
he says there is more that he does not say, that behind each
word he utters there is another word, and hundreds more be-
hind that one. All those unsaid words, he says, contain his true
self, which has been betrayed by the superficial self before her.
"So you see," he says, kicking off his slippers, "I am more than
what I have led you to believe I am." "Oh, you silly man," says
his wife, "of course you are. I find that just thinking of you
having so many selves receding into nothingness is very excit-
ing. That you barely exist as you are couldn't please me more." 

                                      by Mark Strand
                                                  (one of my favorite poets, with a life style I admire)

Coup d'essai:  On Solitude

"Why should I feel lonely?  Is not our planet in the Milky Way? …I have found that no exertion of the legs can bring two minds much nearer to one another."  "…we are never alone."  

     Thoreau, Walden

     I do love Thoreau's sense of humor as well as his philosophical ideas.  Perhaps that is why I am drawn to yoga and the healing silence (physical silence only) that actually binds us all together.  I have so many memories of love and compassion while doing yoga with my family…a communication of the heart made in silence.  Here are some more quotes from Walden:

"If we would enjoy the most intimate society with that in each of us which is without, or above, being spoken to, we must not only be silent, but commonly so far apart bodily that we cannot possible hear each other's voice in any case.  Referred to this standard, speech is for the convenience of those who are hard of hearing."   

Favorite Musician/song:

     Bad Company, "Can't Get Enough of Your Love."

     Plain old down in the dirt rock with only a bass, drums and a guitar.  Powerful.  Elemental.   I had taken a leave of absence from medical school to play bass for several years before returning in 1977 and this was the first song we played.  We hit the big time... a high school gym in Montclair, New Jersey.  I still have the 1974 Fender Precision bass I had bought in New York.  I was so excited to see everyone dancing that I kept turning up my volume…until I blew the speaker.  It was also the first time I had ever done that.

Favorite Book/author:

     Oliver Sacks, Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Childhood

    Precious, interesting, fascinating.  I recommend this to my patients who have an interest in science.

Favorite Movie/DVD:

     Young @ Heart