June 26, 2014 Thursday "speach therapy"

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 26, 2014

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

       “Refer to speach therapy.”

Interesting Name:

       Honest U 

Anecdote:

       A typical Christmas story for some of the less fortunate children in Greenwood.  A five year old little girl was here alone, accompanied by a gentle and compassionate woman who works for the local Catholic Charity called Healthy Learners for families in need.  The little girl was dirty, had cavities, was wearing frayed and soiled pajamas and was extremely underweight…all skin and bones.  Her parents’ electricity had just been turned off and she was living with a cousin.  The parents weren’t available.  

      I was told that the kindergarden teacher was worried about ADHD because she was irritable and not paying attention.  We both agreed that it would have been a miracle if she were attentive and had wonderful behavior under these circumstances.  

       She didn’t get any ADHD medicine from me.  Instead, I  ran down the hallway and rummaged in my back office and found a pretty summer dress for her (gifts from family and friends to give out), gave her a large, stuffed Neymo fish (she didn’t know who he was) and an apple.  I started her on some pediasure knowing that Catholic Charities would help with that.  

        It was a good Christmas.  

                December, 2013, South Carolina

Poetry:

Holy Thursday

'Twas on a holy Thursday, their innocent faces clean,

The children walking two and two in red and blue and green:
Grey-headed beadles walked before, with wands as white as snow,
Till into the high dome of Paul's they like Thames waters flow.

O what a multitude they seemed, these flowers of London town!
Seated in companies they sit, with radiance all their own.
The hum of multitudes was there, but multitudes of lambs,
Thousands of little boys and girls raising their innocent hands.

Now like a mighty wind they raise to heaven the voice of song,
Or like harmonious thunderings the seats of heaven among:
Beneath them sit the aged men, wise guardians of the poor.
Then cherish pity, lest you drive an angel from your door.

          William Blake

Coup d'essai:

PART III of XX from Migrant Health Care Journal

I have seen my share of hog farms already in the limited time I’ve been here.  Also, there are all sorts of ‘feed’ farms, from Purina Chow to dog chow to, who knows, hog chow.

During my lunch hour, I attempted to drive back to the main office.  Yes, eighteen miles away.  I admit it was a courageous act on my part.  The roads in this rural part of North Carolina are largely just numbers, and for the third time since my orientation last week, I managed to take an unmarked road and travel for fifteen minutes through unfamiliar winding roads.  All the dilapidated farms and tractors start to look the same to me, as I wrack my brain for any signs of déjà vu.  Was that particular rusted tractor near the uprooted tree trunk by the grazing cows familiar?  One hog farm starts to look like all the others.  A hog farm is a hog farm is a hog farm.  A hog farm by any other name would smell as sweet.  In any case, I finally give up my lost journey, and I have to retrace my steps …which takes another twenty minutes down the same vaguely familiar roads.  

      There is something Dantesque or Quixotic about my repeated lonely quests through the farmlands, searching for my way back home.  Two weeks later, I’ve come to realize my mistake.  After turning from 242 to 421, it’s easy to miss the  right turn.  All you have to do is look for Barefoot’s Florist, then pass the small six by six foot “car demolition” office on the left, then pass Cecil’s foodstore on the right and as soon as you see a small family cemetery on the corner of the next right, TAKE IT.  It is not numbered, and may even say “Easy Street.”  I don’t know, and I don’t want to know.      

I also stopped at Wilson’s Store for some gas.  Some background information: I had sat across from Mr. Wilson at the Board meeting last Thursday where I was introduced and my employment with the clinic confirmed.  He is one of the well-off farmers in the area I was told.  You wouldn’t know it from looking at him.  His face and neck were burnt a deep brown and deeply furrowed from the years he had spent in the sun.  His fingers were thick and gnarled from his life of labor, just as my Italian grandfather’s were.  The nail on his index finger was slightly bent and deformed from some long forgotten farm accident.  It was so incongruous watching him pick up the delicately buttered bread rolls and put them in his mouth with those unwieldy claws.  The rolls looked like little virginal objects next to his dark hands.  He had on the requisite suspenders, made of thin leather strands woven together, and well worn jeans.  This was our board meeting.  He was a man of few words as he occasionally injected a short pithy statement that was full of common sense.  He always hit the nail on the head and this resulted in laughter from the board members.  

Favorite Musician/song:

Bruce Hornesby, all, "Mandolin Rain"

    A favorite of my family as well, with such beauty and nostalgia…I have memories of our young family growing up in Connecticut always surrounded and embraced by such sweet music.   In a recent concert in Richmond his incredible talent and big heart shown through.  

Favorite Book/author:

Updike, John, some of his poetry

    I just haven't read many of his novels although his prose is elegant and his writing perceptive.  I will include a couple of my favorite poems of his soon.

Favorite Movie/DVD:

Air Guitar Nation

    Some comic relief - just the thought makes me laugh.  The main character is so likeable - an Asian American with very soft spoken parents who are in the medical field, with aspirations for him to become a doctor.  He just couldn't help it though with his effervescent personality…he tried but he just had to become a comedian and entertainer.  Awesome air guitar playing as you follow his journey to the world championships.