Sisterhood, holding onto our memories

By Mary Kay Roth

When my parents were well into their 90’s and dad’s dementia was becoming more pronounced, much to their dismay we took away their car keys (though not their actual vehicles).  So, one summer afternoon when they were running low on bread, mom crawled into the driver’s seat while dad pushed their truck down the driveway – attempting, they claimed, to jump start the vehicle so they could head for the grocery store.

Our family still giggles over this tale, one of the many escapades of my mom and dad. 

It’s different this time around. My sister isn’t supposed to have dementia.

Rose Ann is my older sib, the person I shared a bedroom with – who I tormented as a child, making fun of her parade of boyfriends – tattled on when she backed our car into a light pole. She tolerated and survived being the oldest of four, eventually finding her way to physics and computer classes at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln – at the time, often the only female in class. Crazy smart, she went on to become an executive at IBM, battling her way up the ladder in a man’s world.

She lives in Texas nonetheless, has been my occasional anchor through life, sending care packages when I had morning sickness, offering advice through my divorce, listening with understanding as my then adolescent daughter went bonkers. She remembered every single birthday and milestone.

Rose Ann is brilliant, solid and stoic.  She faces life head-on with honesty and guts.

And yet.

Almost a year ago I started noticing she was repeating things during our phone calls, rationalizing she was tired.  At the same time, my daughter noted that her aunt was missing birthdays, and my niece said Rosie was getting names mixed up. Her dear best friend was concerned.

One evening last summer her son, Ben, texted and asked if we’d noticed anything different about his mom. 

We all needed to face the truth.

Several months later I was traveling in Greece when I got a call from my sis.  I stepped outside a local market, sat down on the ground and listened as she reported results from her brain scan: She had abnormal protein deposits (amyloid plaques), building up between brain cells.

Indeed, she was one of 7 million adults in the U.S. – 65 and older – living with dementia.  One of 57 million worldwide. 

And there we were, across continents in Greece and Texas, heartbroken and crying together.

My sister – who has trekked to almost every corner of the world – was having trouble maneuvering her way around Austin.  She has journeyed to Russia, Europe, South America … down the Nile River … zip lined and scuba dived … taken countless vacations at beaches and Disney World.  

But her traveling days were over, she reported.  “I’m starting to get lost.”

Strangely, I also found myself lost that day, the ground shifting beneath me.  

I wasn’t surprised my dad had memory issues. My sister was closer to the bone. My childhood is drenched in my larger-than-life big sister. Our histories are intertwined. We share the stories of childhood traditions and family vacations – mom’s homemade cornflake chicken and water skiing with my dad on Nebraska lakes. 

And yet here we were, standing on the edge of new territory, no compass to guide us.  

So, last week, we pointed that compass south as our family headed to Texas. My kids, niece, grandkids.

It was a wise trip.  Yes, my sister’s world was getting smaller, but she seemed happy and content in a warm household alongside her husband, Wendall, and their two cats – with her sons and their families nearby. 

Our entire family is still a bit befuddled, navigating the contours of this new woman. This new mom, wife, grandmother, sister.  But Rose Ann seems to be handling the transition with grace and honor. 

Perhaps the rest of us merely need to catch up.

Now a nurse practitioner, my daughter Anna has worked extensively with older people who have memory issues. She advises families to focus on the positive, understand every day is different and every person is different – and practice acceptance.

One of Anna’s favorite stories as a nurse was dealing with a particular veteran constantly agitated and frantic, believing he was getting bombarded by grenades. Anna didn’t argue. She merely got down on the floor with him and suggested they throw the grenades back toward the enemy. They did and life calmed.

We were pretty blessed with my dad’s experience. He remained cheerful and happy through most of his dementia years – our only major challenge happening when Mom died.  After sitting beside her bed, holding her hand and bidding her a loving goodbye, Dad broke down sobbing as we held him and told him she was gone. 

Two hours later he was asking where she was.  And since we had been counseled that retelling and retelling was almost cruel, we started making up yarns. Mom was visiting relatives. She went to the beach. She was taking sky diving lessons. She went off on a motorcycle trip. She was swimming with sharks.

My dad laughed every time we gave him updates, chuckling, “Well, good for her.” 

Rosie, meanwhile, is holding her own.  She has survived losing a child and a bout of cancer. She is one tough broad.

She forgets and gets discombobulated sometimes, but also laughs at life and was so very happy we were all in Texas together.

Admittedly, none of us knows what lies ahead. This road could get quite bumpy. How can we all come together to support Rose Ann? How can we balance honesty and bravery?  Will I get dementia? Our brother? My kids?

I've been reading countless accounts recently about how incredibly hard this could be. But I like to believe that in the coming years we’ll also learn from one another, find riches in a deepening sense of trust and compassion. 

“You can’t come to us, so from now on we’ll come to you,” we assured her.

During a quiet moment in Texas, with just the two of us, I asked Rose Ann if I could tell some of her story. She didn’t hesitate, “Of course you can.” 

I prodded a bit more. “How are you doing, really?  How are you handling this?  What can I do?  I’ll take you anywhere in the world you want to go.”

She said she was grateful for her extensive travels in life. “I’ve really gone everywhere I want to go. It feels good to be home.”

Then, for one brief moment, she teared up and whispered, “I’m a little scared and a little sad. What if I don’t remember something really important?”

No worries, I responded, holding her hand. “I’ll carry all your memories for you, as long as I can.  After all, we’re sisters.”

Misogyny and racial bias in medicine; I believe her.

 by Karla Lester

Dr. Janelle Green Smith died from the complications of childbirth in January

Nothing activates patriarchal medicine more than a female doctor who decides to have a baby. I thought he was going to punch me in the face. It was 2001 and his name, Dr. Ben G. (as Taylor Swift sings, the smallest man who ever lived), an Emergency Medicine doctor in St. Louis, where I worked as a pediatric hospitalist in the ER and covered the newborn nursery. My job included going to the delivery room and taking care of babies who may be born prematurely or in distress. I was just out of residency training when I took the job as my husband was completing two years of fellowship in pathology at WashU. Over my two years of being a hospitalist in a community hospital, I took care of many children, adolescents and babies who were very ill. I loved working nights with the ER nurses and the labor and delivery nurses. They were awesome at their jobs and good friends and threw me a baby shower before our daughter, Katherine, was born. It was an exciting and stressful and sleep deprived time with our first baby. To say we were obsessed with Katherine is an understatement. We had decided to join practices in Lincoln, Nebraska and move in July to our new home. 

I had an agreement with the administration that I would come back after maternity leave (unpaid, of course) for 16 shifts. I was hired to be an employee of the hospital and had full time benefits with the PTO that I built up to take when Katherine was born. We were paying our medical student loans and my husband was a fellow and I was going to be off work, without pay, so I very much needed the few thousand dollars I had built up. We were notified just before the end of the year that an agency would be taking over staffing the ER and the physicians would no longer be employees of the hospital system, but would be independent contractors under this company and Dr. Ben G. would be in charge of me and the other pediatricians and ER doctors. We would lose our benefits, which would include my PTO I built up. The administration at the hospital told me I would need to come back after my leave and work 16 shifts in order to get access to my PTO. By the way, this is happening across the country with private equity buying up healthcare systems. It’s bad news all around, especially for patients. 

Back to when I thought he was going to punch me. It was my first shift back after maternity leave and Dr. Ben G. just heard that I was moving. I got paged to the ER. “I need to talk to you.” He pulled me into the trauma bay, got in my face, pointing and spitting, “I’ve bent over backwards for you. You lied to me. You deceived me.” I literally didn’t know why this little man was stroking out over my life decisions. How are you relevant in any way? I think the hospital administration told him I was staying, so when he found out I was moving to Lincoln, he flipped out on me. That meant he would need to recruit a new pediatrician and without benefits to offer, was going to be a heavy lift for a weak man. 

Misogyny in medicine. Didn’t give it a name at the time. I went on with my work day (night) and finished out my shifts. It was aggression though and it was harassment and abuse. It was actually quite scary. Shoutout to my MIL who came and stayed with us for a month to take care of Katherine so I could work. 

We moved to Lincoln in July, 2001. My second pregnancy was in 2002, but after a rough night on call without sleep, I started to bleed and cramp at clinic when I was seeing patients. The next day, the ultrasound showed nothing. I had miscarried at 12 weeks and went back to work. At the next partner meeting, a few days after my D&C, after a full clinic day of seeing patients, one of my partners, Sole Bread Winner, as he referred to himself to evoke pity from me many times, came into my office, stood over me, patted me on the shoulder, and instructed me to, “Get back on the horse.” The comment was crude and cruel like Sole Bread Winner. Believe people when they show you who they are. 

Misogyny in medicine. I didn’t give it a name at the time and went on with my busy life. I followed through with my prenatal visits with prospective parents at St. Elizabeth’s and watched the baby bumps grow as mine didn’t. I had panic attacks in the bathroom stall before going into the group prenatal visits. It was never a question that I would continue to do the group prenatal visits because the practice was growing and if I would have brought up my panic attacks, I would have appeared weak and would have been chided. I knew that much. Didn’t name it. Didn’t call it what it was. 

Pediatric call was very busy. I never had a problem with it. I actually enjoyed it and did fine with grinding it out. But, after my miscarriage, when I became pregnant with Audrey, my third pregnancy, I was worried about taking call during the first trimester, so my OB wrote a note to my partners to let them know I shouldn’t take call the first trimester. Again, just like most women in America, there is no paid maternity leave and so I took 12 weeks off and it was during the holidays that I came back and was put on triple call to make up for my absence. After falling asleep driving to one of the hospitals in the middle of the night, after clocking three nights of no sleep, jolted awake when I hit the median, I decided to speak up. I was met with, “Karla, are you okay with taking call like the rest of us?” 

“Of course, I’ve always taken full call. It’s not okay to schedule me for triple call.”  I was dehumanized. Produce for the patriarchy. Punished for my unpaid absence. 

I was always so full of dread to tell them I was pregnant. With Andrew, my fourth and last pregnancy, I was too busy to care about the comments. I also didn’t care about their opinions of whether I should have another child or not. The aggressions continued. Their business plan was for me to be an employed physician, but as a former owner, that wasn’t going to work for me on any level. Call it providence, but this was the time when the vision for my nonprofit, Teach a Kid to Fish, the love of my career, came to me. So, I left my practice of patients and families I loved to move forward with my vision of “creating community solutions for children’s health”. 

This is barely a glimpse into what was to come in my career and the blatant misogyny and entitlement to what I created. I’ve faced so much blatant misogyny in my career as a doctor, she’s her own walking and talking being who could write her own book. But, I didn’t give it a name and I didn’t center myself because there are more pressing issues and crises that exist and deserve my voice and all of our voices. 

Medical misogyny is deadly for patients, especially when mixed with racial bias. Black women in the U.S. are 3 to 4 times more likely to die in childbirth than white women. Black women have the highest maternal mortality rate of any racial/ethnic group in the United States.

Dr. Janell Green Smith, a doctor in nursing and midwife in South Carolina, advocating to end preventable black maternal death in her daily work, died in January from complications of childbirth at age 31 after delivering her first baby at 32 weeks by emergency C-section. Dr. Green Smith focused her work on helping Black women deliver safely, but developed pre-eclampsia and died from complications after childbirth. 

The causes of maternal death driving the Black-White gap are from eclampsia, preeclampsia, postpartum cardiomyopathy, obstetric embolism and hemorrhage. The gap is not explained by individual-level patient risk factors alone. The Black maternal death crisis in the U.S. is multi-causal, related to systemic racism, implicit bias and disparities in healthcare. 

Things will get worse before they get better. Trump and the GOP’s OBBB guts Medicaid by $880 Billion and has created urban and rural OBGYN deserts of care. Dr. Oz says we are “underbabied” in the U.S. as reproductive rights are being stripped away. Erika Kirk recently told young women to have more babies than you can afford. The audience cheered. Their goal is more MAGA babies and silenced women. The Save America Act, if it passes, guts voting rights for women. 

To turn the tide, there are things we can do. Acknowledge that misogyny and racial bias in medicine are real. 

Believe her.

Give it a name. 

Learn how to be an ally.

Go on social media and listen to the stories of black women. I learned from a creator on TikTok who shared the ways white women can support black women and how to be an ally.

“If you work in healthcare and you see that a black woman is in pain and being looked over, pay attention to her. If a black woman is crying or says she’s in a lot of pain or she’s in labor, believe her.  Believe her and treat her as you would a white woman. Make no deference, have no difference. Treat her with empathy, with care and with the oath that you took. If you see a black woman speaking and she’s getting cut off, speak up for her. Don’t sit in silence. ‘I think Kathy was saying something that affords our attention. Let’s give her the opportunity to continue her thought.’Refrain from dismissing lived experience that is happening right now. Seek unity, allyship and connection. When voting, vote for all women.”

My perpetrators were irrelevant in my care for patients who I loved and cared for. My journey in medicine and my role as a mother has been my own. I intentionally didn’t give it a name. Now, grateful for not centering myself, I can learn to be an ally for black women and babies. I listen and I believe fully, knowing the impact of what I went through is multiplied for Black women. It is a call to action to advocate to end preventable Black maternal deaths in America. 

Resources:

Sheshavingababy is a content creator I follow on TikTok. She is an excellent advocate for Black maternal health.

Licia, MD just started residency in OBGYN and is great to follow.  

“Birth Vibes” by Jen Hamilton is a good book to check out. 

Shannon M. Clark, MD, FACOG is a recommended doctor on social media. 

Check out Black Mamas Matter Alliance and download the Impact report to learn more.

Dissent is patriotic ... do not tread on me

By Elizabeth Flater

“I love my country

by which I mean

I am indebted joyfully

 to all the people throughout its history

 who have fought the government to make right.”

-Ani Difranco 

 

Somehow, the American Flag has evolved into a right wing symbol. The way I see it, the most patriotic Americans are those that have actually fought for the values in the Declaration of Independence that we celebrate today. On this 250th anniversary of the United State’s Independence, I lift my glass to Abolitionists, Freedom Fighters, Suffragists, Reproductive Justice Advocates and those fighting for LGBTQIA+ freedom. To me, they are the face of patriotism. The blue stripes in the flag represent vigilance, perseverance and justice. The time for these values is nigh. The United States flag and patriotism do not belong exclusively to the Republican party.

 

I don’t know about you, but there’s something rising in me these days that makes me feel more patriotic than I ever have before. But it’s not for the reasons one might assume. I want our country to be the country we claim to be—the one the founding fathers spoke into existence, even when they themselves weren’t fully living into those ideals. I want a country of liberty and justice for all, where all (wo)men are created equally and endowed with unalienable rights.

 

 I want to be among the people whom “whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

 

I am not proud of where we are headed on a federal level. I feel betrayed by the elected officials that have kowtowed to Donald Trump and Project 2025. 

 

At the same time, I am more grateful than I have ever been for:

- Women that fought for the right to vote, bodily autonomy and so many other rights

- Black leaders that have and continue to stand up and fight for equality 

- Laborers who wouldn’t back down until the labor laws were improved

- LGBTQIA+ community that have fought for their rights

- Immigrants who have advocated for reform

 

One thing we’ve learned over the last 10 years is that these rights are not all guaranteed, and in many cases, they are revocable. Some equal rights have yet to be achieved. Some communities are yet to be protected equally under the law. Women all over this country are fighting for their bodily autonomy and medical care, when we may have thought this fight had already been settled.  

 

In 1751, Christopher Gadsden designed the Don’t Tread On Me flag with a rattlesnake as it’s symbol. During the Revolution, Benjamin Franklin said the rattlesnake is the perfect symbol for this idea, because a rattlesnake will never start a fight. But, once it is provoked, it will never back down. It’s a symbol of vigilance and a defender. The tea party took it on as their symbol when they were gaining popularity in 2009, to protest government spending and federal overreach. It is now often seen at different rallies and political events of the populist right. 

 

I think it’s time to reclaim the American flag and the Don’t Tread On Me mentality. Liberty does not belong to Republicans when they are trying to tell women what they can and cannot do with their bodies.  Freedom is not telling transgender people where they can use the restroom or drag queens, where they can read stories in public. The pursuit of happiness does not involve stoking fear in immigrant communities. Life does not belong to Republicans, when they repeatedly, over decades of time, refuse to implement common sense gun reform that the majority of Americans support. 

 

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that we, the American people on the 250th anniversary of our freedom from Oligarchic rule, now find ourselves sliding backwards in our quest for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. 

 

Dissent is patriotic. 

 

Do not tread on me. 

 

Happy semiquincentennial to all the patriots who have fought the good fight, and who continue the American legacy of never backing down in the pursuit of freedom and justice for all.  

 

"She never wounds 'till she has generously given notice, even to her enemy, and cautioned him against the danger of treading on her." 

— Benjamin Franklin

 

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Our most important news

By JoAnne Young

I attended a newswriting seminar years ago in which one of the speakers said something I have carried with me to this day. The speaker was a newspaper columnist who said: The most important news of the day to people is what is said around the dinner table. 

So, fellow believers in Mayhem, here is the news of the week as reported at my house. 

 

My dahlias are looking great. My gazanias are being nibbled down by the rabbit living in my yard. It has chewed the petal tips off two bright yellow blooms and chomped on the leaves of some, reducing them to nubs. I thought the occasional foxes in the neighborhood may have kept the bunnies at bay, but they must have found a good hiding place. 

 

Our young grands were here this week, ages 11, 9 and 7, to stay with us while attending the Lincoln Children’s Zoo camp, a good dose of animal love eight hours a day for five days. They brought home news of Pebbles the penguin, Zuri the cheetah, Allie the giraffe, and that peacock roaming the grounds who is “the nice one.” 

 

I will admit to having not been a fan of zoos, for the most part because I feel badly for creatures sentenced to a cage rather than roaming the wild. But I understand the idea of zoos as places of conservation and protection and breeding arks for endangered species. I appreciate that Ellie, Max and Aila got close to penguins and giraffes and, my favorites, the goats, with those strangest of eyes that give them a 320-degree field of vision. And back home to Denver they went this weekend with stuffies from the gift shop, a snake and a red panda, and a tracking bracelet for Kira the gorilla, who is roaming free in Africa, somewhere near Rwanda. 

 

Other things I learned at the dinner table: 

* The 11-year-old only likes homemade pesto, not the Costco brand (with imported Italian basil), which I think is pretty good, and much easier than growing and picking my own Nebraska basil and buying pine nuts and fresh garlic cloves, red pepper flakes and grated parmesan cheese. Is Italian basil better than Nebraska basil? 

* Video games require kids to be hyper focused and can release high doses of dopamine. After a while, withdrawal can result in irritability, agitation and exhaustion. 

* Showers are boring. I couldn’t disagree with this one. They would be less boring if we could read in the shower, or use a new, wonderful soap fragrance each time, or have someone else wash our hair. 

* Benji (the star of the Benji movies) is safe to watch because Benji doesn’t die, and that particular little dog is smarter and more daring than any police detective and accomplishes everything without guns or other weapons. Suspend belief. 

* I could do all my birthday and Christmas shopping for these three grands at the zoo’s gift shop. Good to know.

 

Watching the kids this week at several of Lincoln’s colorful parks filled with slides and tire swings and some kind of new-fangled seesaw made me daydream about a playground for adults with tall slides and wide swings and high teeter-totters just for fun rather than for exercise. 

 

Electronic devices and screens were a constant source of attention this week. The kids don’t have phones but do have iPads that are used for reading, watching shows and playing Subway Surfers. Their father has put barriers on the iPads to limit access and time spent on all but the reading device. I had to make sure they were charged and the proper codes entered at the proper times. 

 

I have to admit my smart phone is somewhat addictive. It is programmed to be, with ever more updates to draw me to it. Lately, it lights up when I walk near it, to show me any new notifications that I just must see. It won’t be long until it will be calling me by name when I walk into the room. And my Ring doorbell will shout out, Hey, someone is walking by your front door.

 

A friend was telling me this week how much she likes to go the pool because it doesn’t change, it doesn’t update. It feels, looks and smells the same way it did when she was a kid. Comforting and relaxing and warm. 

 

Good news for parents whose adult children have moved across the country (that’s us). We had a visit from our daughter this past week, and tomorrow our oldest son will come from Los Angeles for a couple of days, and our youngest son is moving back to our area from Florida a few days later. 

 

Finally, our family news is thankfully not filled with politics this week, but as our country’s 250^th birthday approaches, I would like to give a shoutout to Supreme Court Justice Elana Kagan for her dissent in a decision that allowed Homeland Security to end temporary protected status to migrants from Haiti and Syria. She put Trump’s most racist and inflammatory remarks about Haitians into permanent record, and blasted her conservative colleagues (Huffpost, June 25), who said none of Trump’s or Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s were “overtly racist” or did not reflect racial bias. 

 

Kagan put those racist statements in the record: Trump said Haitians “probably have AIDS,” Haiti is a “shithole” country, Haitians are “poisoning the blood” of America, and Haitian immigration is like a “death wish for our country.”

 

The statements by the president are so repellent and racially inflected, Kagan said, that the majority declines to put them in print. But they “fairly shout, in their racial overtones and undertones alike, that race entered into the president’s resolve to remove Haitians from this country. ... Haitians are Black. The references—of filth, disease and primitiveness—are shot through with racial stereotypes and tropes.” 

 

There are better things to fill up our family news, but we can’t avoid the messy news from outside our neighborhood infiltrating our private lives. We have to keep those other dinner tables in mind. They need our attention, too. 

 

Wishing you and yours all good news in the next week and beyond. 

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Hope Is a Choice

 By Marilyn Moore

Did your family have a designated family worrier?  Mine did, or at least, that’s how I saw it.  It was Aunt Marie, my mom’s sister, the oldest of the six siblings.  Aunt Marie kept track of everyone, which was mostly wonderful, because we all knew she was looking out for us.  She knew who was ill, who was hurting, who was getting married, who was having a baby, whose car had broken down, who had a new job and who needed a new job, whose crops were doing well and whose were faltering.  She knew it all….and if there were a reason to worry, Aunt Marie did so.  She also stepped in to help, anyone on the above list or anyone else who might just need a little boost.

When Aunt Marie died, my mom took over that role.  I don’t think it weighed her down; for her it was a part of caretaking.  Somehow or other, she just knew…who needed help, who needed prayers, who needed a phone call or a visit or a card or a plate of cookies or tomatoes from her garden.  

My mom was the last of her siblings to die, and I don’t think a member of my generation has stepped into that role…though perhaps one of the cousins has done so.  While I’m not the family worrier, I do notice that I tend to worry about “things” more than I did ten years ago.  Perhaps when I was working there simply was not time to notice all the things that could go wrong; now, I seem to have more time for worry. 

I think there’s a negative connotation to the word “worry,” and I tend to not use it, choosing words like “fret” or “concern.”  Not sure there’s much difference….I envy my friend Mary, whose approach to “things that go wrong” is intentionally thinking, “It’s probably just something little, something easily fixed.”  Mine is exactly the opposite.  

I can go in thirty seconds from a leaky pipe that means a part of a ceiling will need to be replaced to a leaky pipe that means the entire second floor will collapse into the first place and the house will be destroyed.  I can go in thirty seconds from a growth on my eyelid that my ophthalmologist assures me is non-cancerous and easily removed to a malignancy that has penetrated my eye and will cause permanent blindness.  I can go in thirty seconds from being a week past the oil change date on my car to total engine failure.  And all of these are magnified twenty-fold when it’s two o’clock in the morning.  Eventually, reason takes over, I get more information and make a plan of action, and the thing about which I’ve been fretting (for days or weeks or longer) is resolved, and it moves off my 2 a.m. worry list. 

(I do not downplay the seriousness of some of these reasons for worry, either for myself or others. I’ve received the phone call telling me I had cancer; somehow, I never thought I would hear my name and the word “cancer” in the same sentence, but it happened, and it’s happened to many of my friends, too.  I’ve known people whose homes were destroyed, who literally started over.  I was with my mom when she got the phone call in the middle of the night that my dad had died, and I know others who have experienced the same.  The death of a child is a parent’s worst nightmare; it’s happened to people I know and love.  Sometimes, the things we worry about do happen, and it’s awful….and worrying didn’t help….but how can you not.)

More recently, I’ve been worried about our country, about the institutions that are intended to be the bedrocks of our democracy, institutions like free and fair elections, voting rights, balance of powers among three branches, equality before the law, freedom to speak and protest and petition, due process, birthright citizenship.  These are big things, and big worries…way more than a leaky pipe and an oil change. Big enough that it’s hard to figure out what one person might do….and wearying to think about the effort it takes to combine the efforts of the millions of people who are also worried, also fretting.  

And then, Michelle Obama, in her magnificent speech at the opening of the Obama Presidential Center, addressed it head on.  We have choices.  Her words: 

And that's why, folks, we simply don't have the luxury or time to be cynical or complacent, to wring our hands in despair, to wait for someone else to fix the problem.

Y'all, hope is all we have.

Because hope is the essential spark that lights the fire of change. But hope is a choice. Whether or not we use our voices to speak up is a choice. Voting is a choice. Being a decent human being is a choice. Believing that we still hold the power to build a country that reflects us all is a choice.

So, whether it’s a leaky pipe, a hard medical diagnosis, or an assault on a democratic value, we have choices.  I have a choice.  And the choice is to figure out what action one person can take that makes the desired outcome more likely rather than less likely.  As for the assaults on democracy, I can choose to vote.  To speak. To write.  To contact members of congress.  To campaign for candidates who reflect my deeply held values.  To support financially those agencies that support, defend, and advocate for those who are threatened and intimidated.  Those are not glamorous acts, but they are acts of citizenship.  When enough of us do them, we move the needle in the right direction…we bend the arc toward justice.

And when I’m tired of worrying, I read again the words of Mary Oliver, author of, “I Worried.”

I worried a lot.  Will the garden grow, will the rivers flow in the right direction, will the earth turn

as it was taught, and if not how shall 

I correct it?

Was I right, was I wrong, will I be forgiven,

can I do better?

Will I ever be able to sing, even the sparrows

can do it and I am, well,

hopeless.

Is my eyesight fading or am I just imagining it,

am I going to get rheumatism,

lockjaw, dementia?

Finally I saw that worrying had come to nothing.

And I gave it up.  And took my old body

and went out into the morning,

and sang.

                    Mary Oliver    

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Summer is calling … cell phones or fireflies?

By Mary Kay Roth

The twinkle of a firefly at twilight.  A meteor shower at midnight. The scent of basil from our garden. A snapdragon that snaps.  The taste of fresh mulberries plucked with purpled fingers.

 

As the warm days of summer are fast upon us, I risk sounding like an old curmudgeon when I remember a childhood crowded with kiddie pools during the day and playing kick-the-can into the night. Drawing sidewalk masterpieces with chalk.  Watching ants laboriously build anthills. Roaming undeveloped lots in search of wildflowers and snakes.

 

Fast forward to one of my granddaughter’s birthday parties this year, held at a cabin in the woods – not a rustic cabin, mind you, more of a glamping cabin – when a hike at dusk came to an abrupt end. 

 

Some of the young party goers were scared. And, no, they didn’t see spooky bats or spiders.  Instead, the girls simply feared: THE OUTDOORS. 

 

“We’re just taking a simple nature hike,” my daughter told them.

 

One little girl countered: “I’m scared of nature.  I don’t like nature.”

 

When they returned to the cabin, all was calmer with games and grilling out. But a few girls never really participated, too upset because there was no Wi-Fi access in the wilderness.

 

With June, July and August looming ahead, I think about that birthday party as I walk through the neighborhoods of Lincoln and notice empty sidewalks and empty streets.

 

Where are all the kids these days?

 

Richard Louv, author of the book Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder tells the story of interviewing a child who said he liked playing indoors more than outdoors “cause that’s where all the electrical outlets are.”

 

A child’s experience of being nervous around nature is a product of a larger issue among twenty-first century children, Louv says.  “Childhood has moved indoors. Children’s use of space has changed from being primarily outdoors to indoors, increasingly adult supervised, and full of screens.”

 

Trust me, I have no hate of technology.  My grandchildren continually surprise me with accumulated knowledge – at early ages – thanks to the internet and online documentaries and accessible info everywhere. 

 

But good grief, folks, it’s June.  

For my grandchildren that translates into walks in parks and fireflies at night.  Making mud pies in their backyard. Reading books curled up in the curve of a tree stump. Camping beside a Nebraska lake. Bicycling on summer afternoons – not driving – to find an ice cream stand. Helping raise chickens in the backyard.  

 

A glorious family in our neighborhood started a yard business and their kids – of all ages – are outdoors all summer, mowing, laughing, helping.  Another mom I know created a summer poster with “a taste of nature” on every day.

 

However, I fear these families are the exception, as screen vs. green time seems dangerously out of whack. 

 

Although technology used within healthy limits can offer benefits to children, it has come with a cost. Children are heavier and unhappier as obesity and anxiety are on the rise – and growing evidence suggests children’s excessive screen use is linked to a range of adverse outcomes that impact physical and mental health. 

 

In contrast, research on green time increasingly and consistently demonstrates that nature-rich environments promote well-being and healthy development. 

 

Admittedly, today’s kids have an alluring reason to be indoors: Television, smartphones, video games, computers, reels, social media. Recent research from the Kaiser Family Foundation found that young people ages eight to eighteen spend an average of more than seven to thirteen hours a day with eyes locked on a screen. 

Louv calls this problem "Nature Deficit Disorder," pointing out the ultra processed entertained kids are immersed in. 

 

 He also stresses that we must begin by looking at their parents.

 

When I walk around Holmes Lake every morning, I’m often heartened by children fishing along the banks of the water. Just as likely, however, their parents are sitting beside them, glued to their phones. Taking my grandkids swimming these days, I’m often one of the lone adults in the pool playing beside children – while so many parents and grandparents linger ashore, on towels or beach chairs, lost in texting.

 

I want to tell those parents to grab a fishing rod – or cannonball into a lake, holding hands with their child.

 

I also want them to understand that nature play is more than just fun, it’s a critical component of a child’s development. 

 

Outdoor activities help kids stay active and healthy. build strength, coordination and balance.  Time in nature has been shown to reduce stress, anxiety and depression in children – provide a peaceful and calming environment, fostering emotional resilience. Nature is a limitless source of creative inspiration for curious young minds, and a natural classroom for exploration and learning.  

 

Finally, nurturing a love for nature at a young age instills a sense of responsibility and care for the environment, making kids more likely to become environmentally conscious adults.

 

Let’s not minimize that last benefit.

 

While kids need nature, nature also desperately needs kids.

 

People don’t protect what they don’t care about or what they don’t know. So, young people not only reap benefits from experiencing nature, but also grow up to be advocates for a healthy planet.

 

And in this age of climate change, mass extinction and environmental degradation, there has never been a greater need for champions of our Earth. 

 

Donald Trump, a tyrant who has launched an unprecedented assault upon the environment, has instigated a blitzkrieg of actions to undo rules protecting clean air, water and a livable climate.  Deleting a swath of green policies, he has frozen climate spending, set about rewriting pollution standards for cars, trucks and power plants, endangered sprawling tracts of land now earmarked for new oil and gas drilling, opened up vast expanses of national forests for cutting timber. 

 

But you can’t lay all the blame on Trump. While smarter countries around the world institute bag-less grocery stores, water-efficient toilets, small energy-efficient cars, as well as major initiatives to keep the world green – countless Americans whine when they take away their plastic grocery bags, insist toilets flush with a gigantic burble and demand SUVs for perhaps the one vacation they take per year.  

 

The health of the global environment is contingent on people actively protecting and advocating for a sustainable planet.

 

So, bring on kids who understand and love nature – who don’t run inside when it rains, but jump in the puddles –who celebrate summer by running through sprinklers, making clover chains, taking flashlight hikes at night. 

 

Set your watches for summer solstice this year – June 21 – the perfect moment for digital detox and screen limitations. 

 

Go outside. Explore local trails, have a picnic, play hide-and-seek. Plant a flower seeds. Climb a tree. Let the grass tickle your bare feet, smell the earth beneath you and look up at the clouds above. 

 

Outdoors is beckoning.  Answer the call. And leave your dang cell phone behind.

"OMG, the baby puked!"

by Karla Lester

Life is full of the unpredictable. 

For anyone with a queasy stomach, this blog is not for you. For anyone who has spent even one moment with a child, you’ll be fine. This is real life, folks. 

My family has a lot of inside family jokes from our trips and one liners from movies. We constantly quote movie lines from National Lampoon’s Vacation. Our most famous inside family joke is from March of 2008, LPS Spring Break for our oldest.

It was a time of transition in life and I was running on what felt like empty. It was only two months before I was leaving my pediatric practice to officially launch my nonprofit, Teach a Kid to Fish, when our family of 5 headed to San Diego for “vacation”.

As any parent knows, all the planning in the world can’t possibly account for what happens when traveling with kids. It’s humbling, to say the least. It’s also not relaxing. Let’s get real. We are the quintessential overcommitters at our house. We had committed to the trips and the memories. Clark Griswold has nothing on us. As you read on, you’ll find we are more like Cousin Eddie. 

Katherine was 7 years old, Audrey 4 ½ and Andrew was 19 months. I recently happened upon a video made on a camcorder, if you can believe it, of the trip. I have so much compassion for our sweet family when I watch that video. We were definitely doing our best trying to take care of Andrew who started to get sick on day 1, and stay on track with planned activities to Legoland, Coronado Island, Sea World and the world famous San Diego zoo. In the video, Katherine is going through the differences between African and Indian elephants and naming everything. Audrey is wearing her all pink beach outfit, putting sunglasses on and lipstick. Andrew is toddling around. They’re so adorable. They’re now 25, 22 and 19 and I would go back in a second if I could. 

On the plane ride there, Andrew, who had a cough and a slight fever, really declared himself. Illness will either declare itself or it will go away. As a pediatrician and Mom, this may not have been my finest moment. Andrew started vomiting as we were getting off the plane. We were stripping his clothes off and ours as much as we could so that by the time we reached Avis, he was in just a diaper. I would give him tylenol and pedialyte and he would rally and act like his 19 month old self. Then, start up with symptoms again on and off during the trip. 

As a pediatrician Mom, which overall is a big positive, but not always and when in San Diego, not of great benefit, the only option would have been to go to the Emergency Room and he wasn’t to that point. Kids rally. Andrew rallied and we headed to the San Diego zoo as planned the next day. Things were going swimmingly at the zoo, the kids cracking up at the balls of hippo poop plopping out of hippo butts at the hippo pool. 

We got to the line for the Skyfari Aerial tram, which was very popular per the long line. As we were waiting, the line stopped moving. There was a hold up for some reason. Then we hear behind us, “Great. It stopped. We are going to be late. We will never get there in time. We are going to miss it. I can’t believe this. We’ll never make it!”

Then, “Mom, chill out. Relax. Stop. It’s okay.”

I glanced back to see what Chicken Little looked like to find a middle aged woman with her adult daughter and two kids. This lady was the Chicken Little, the white knuckler of the century. 

Chicken Little said to us, “Your family of 5 is going to need two cars. You’ll have to be divided up.” She was counting up the number of people in front of her. Her panic was getting stronger as she was deciding whether or not to get out of line and walk all the way through the zoo back to wherever they needed to be. 

It was pretty hot and humid and Andrew was getting feverish. As Chicken Little got into full panic mode, Andrew looked back over Dad’s shoulder, right towards Chicken Little and right onto the asphalt in front of Chicken Little and vomited. 

Chicken Little exclaimed, “Oh my God! The Baby Puked!” 

Then she turned to her daughter and said, “Let’s go.” Chicken Little pivoted on her heel and ran off. As they say, a baby vomiting right in front of her at the zoo wasn’t on her bingo card. Chicken Little had a whole lot of things on her bingo card, but she couldn’t have predicted that. 

Cut to the camcorder video of the scene of our young family at the condo after “OMG, the baby puked!” I want to tell my younger self to get prepared for the future OMG, the baby puked moments coming up in life and in my career. It seems like there have been and are so many unpredictable moments. Good and bad. 

We are facing them everyday with the Weekend at Bernie’s President who shows posters of his larger than skyscrapers pool while bombing Iran, gutting Medicaid, and ICE and detention center crimes against humanity. 

OMG! Are you frickin’ kidding me? The baby puked again! 

Getting a new diagnosis.

OMG, the baby puked!

Losing a job.

OMG, the baby puked!

There’s no predicting the chaos of life. Life declares itself. It is full of unpredictability and lack of control. Rigidity, panic ensues in the everyday and yet, to have the capacity for the OMG, the baby puked moments, we all must shore up our energy and live in the moments of joy that happen in between.  

I hope Chicken Little made it to wherever she needed to be by the time she needed to get there. 

Stop.

Take a pause.

A change of plans is fine.