God's Favorite Sport

She came to see me for a medical evaluation as an outpatient visit. Besides her eyesight issues, I found her doing great at being 77 years old. There was no history of diabetes, hypertension, mini-stroke, cancer, or arthritis. No aches or pains. I was pleasantly surprised. To me, she was amazingly well for her age. I told her that people like her will make doctors out of business soon. She smiled.

She told me that her favorite hobby was swimming and she was doing it for a long time, Offcourse now 77 and started at age 6.

She told me that she always felt connected to water throughout her life. She had swum in oceans too. Then she asked me that did I knew what is God's favorite sport, and replied as smoothly as she had put her question as she saw my utter ignorance.  She said God's favorite sport is swimming. I smiled as she appeared to me that she knew that for a fact. 

“It is He who created the heavens and the earth in six periods, and His throne extends over the water, so as to test which of you does best…”

Qur’an 11:7

COVID-19: The Micro Equalizer

As we finally set down to have a history of his present illness and dealing with his condition, I also asked to share his views. He started to talk as being a teacher, and then a short conversation became a full topic lecture.

As COVID -19 has taken over most of the countries of the world, borders are blurred, and walls are insignificant to contain it.  Scarfs and face masks were considered as "not our values" in some places and legally banned within some countries but not only the women but men are also recommended to wear it now.  The poor and rich countries are equally struggling to contain it, and both are short in masks and supplies. The civilized nations are suffering more than uncivilized in some accounts. He continued, people are homebound, businesses are closed, streets and roads are barren. Oil prices are down so much so as no one believed, raising questions about oil companies' profit margins they were making on us for so long.

To some people, the COVID-19 pandemic is a reminder for people as it was reminded before in a Quranic story "The Elephant" which states: "Have you not considered, [O Muhammad, PBUH], how your Lord dealt with the companions of the elephant? Did He not make their plan into misguidance? And He sent against them birds in flocks. Striking them with stones of hard clay And He made them like eaten straw."

Just look at the falls of giants as the global economies nose dive, scientific advances collapses, and powerful governments struggle, and this should remind us that a microscopic virus (like the striking birds with a stone) can shut down world engines and our routines as we were becoming arrogant and out of our realm. Interestingly. the old quotes are now being constantly reminded to us; Desiderius Erasmus's "prevention is better than cure" and Benjamin Franklin's "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." An amazingly humbling feeling as all advances come back to simple basics.

He also mentioned that to him, it is a COVID-curse, and a punishment for us as being indifferent from all illegitimate happenings under our noses as it is as if we have been looking away from killings without due process, invasions and occupations of minds, people and lands. We are accomplices as global citizens in crimes against humanity by remaining silent. We did not stand for those who could not stand for themselves. The greed of power and absolute greed for absolute power of a few and muted response from the majority has brought down upon us the ultimate modern-day experience named COVID-19

Then he reminded me of the Quranic message of hope and encouragement “So, Verily, With Every Difficulty, there is Relief”.

I see hope when I see a race to innovate for the cure to save lives, the rise of self-introspection as people are looking in themselves. I read news of blue skies in cities with pollution mitigation and improvement  in air quality,  people to people contacts, near and distant relatives to check-in via phones or face time, strangers are being helped, tolerance  developing  to respect differences of opinions, people are connecting  dots on  the map  of  human sufferings even in places that are not even their piece of the pie. I believe in goodness among each of us, findings its way to keep us whole as humane-being. If we remember our lessons as being taught now, I have no doubt that God willing, we will rise again.

Scare of a virus

As the corona virus pandemic has spread across the world, it became a testing time for people’s true character.  There is fear, anxiety, insomnia, lock down, restrictions, social distancing, and barren roads and streets. We are living in a surreal "walking dead" episode as some may relate. It looks like that even hope has also been locked down somewhere these days by wearing a mask or a full personal protection equipment while we are bombarded with doom and gloom.

Still some among us are looking at the heart of the humanity which is in full swing to help and care for those who needed the most.  They are availing the best of the blue skies, the availability of time to fix the clutters at homes, family time together, and the life as it was before. The modern life war fare of rush hours, traffic grid locks, road rage, shopping sprees, dog walking, concerts, festivals, gatherings, hand shakes, hugs and kisses are on hold and though rain checks are available but not in site yet.

One may consider as doing an imaginary  journey as if  how people were living during  the times of previous  killer epidemics, and may ponder how those people reacted during there sufferings if there was an internet at the time of the great plague to kill time out of boredom. 

We see people with different perspectives, conspiracy theories, and as many suggestions and treatment recommendations as utube accounts. This  surely can trigger a soul searching path, and to have  a yearning for the truth in times of chaos as one can find an opportunity to excel as well.

To some we find them scared of a viral pandemic and looking for a mask to protect themselves from the sickness while abusing substances, they are the ones who are selective in their choice of poisons to die; others are wearing masks  all along throughout their lives to hide their hypocrisies.

May the mask protect all of us from the virus as it reveals the greatest secret of life that breath counts, especially the clean one.

"buying good rather than goods"

Mighty  money, gives you power and choices. Steve Job has it all but not having health can be limiting. History has proven it over and over, again and again. But, I think, history is never there to teach us: it is a story of past doings of others, you may learn but largely used as a reference to cross reference past doings in current times. It  happens before, it  can happen now with similar consequences. The people who make history usually may not be aware of history as they are busy in making it.

He was writing his new book and having limitations to talk and write has given him option to blink and command. That  was one of the innovations for ALS patients.

He showed his writing on computer screen, and wanted my opinion.

Sure, amazing thoughts. Money can buy you a lots of goods, and he wrote. I would buy good rather than just goods. I smiled and I looked at  his eyes, and I saw a free spirited mind, defiant of  his caged soul in an occupied body under ALS.

To some, money brings a piece of peace. The  choices, options and freedom to buy stuff, new and shinning. They are preoccupied by happiness through glitter to get clutter;  stored as it get old fashioned and sometimes misfit as aging process affect.

Others, use money to buy good by helping others. I saw his thoughts were showing up on the  screen one alphabet at a time, and he continued, those are the ones who comfortably move on as the last jacket has no pockets as you take with you no goods, but only good you have sent forward.

" what can be worst than a fart"

As I was seeing him while he was an in-patient with a room shared with another patient, suddenly his expression changed. He was obviously uncomfortable which was supported by  his expressions of being very upset about something. I asked him, are you in pain. He said, not really. How about your breathing, he said not too bad. Then what is bothering  you, I asked.

He answerd me with rather a question. What can be worst than a fart?

I did not knew what to say. I smiled and replied, you can tell me, I am your doctor.

He said  that the man on next bed has visitors who come after smoking pot, its odor is all over them and he never liked skunk odor. No one likes it.

It is true that pot has some thiols, what may be associated with skunk spray, but I am not sure as I am no expert. He kept talking about; why people don't respect other people choices too when they demand their right to chose;  life style, food, smoking and freedom of speech.

To some, recreational use of substances exceed the threshold of choices others too have, like breathing non adultered clean air. You may not smell  fresh roses or blooming orchids freshness all the times. You  may not smell of rain forest often, but how about breathing neutral clean air.   Air with no contamination of burning  pot or tobacco: no one wants to have others spit then why breath others foul air.

To others, life cannot be easy as winning one battle of choices bring them face to face with other fights and realities of life; chronic pains, anxiety, disability, single parenthood, social inequality, issues of relationship with family-fellow being-God. There are many questions but few answers for a curious mind. Probably  recreational use of anything will not change the ground realities of ones situation but it may buy time to fight it out another day. In the grand scheme of life both suffer as how pot smells to non pot smokers, why they smoke pot and is there is something else can be there. There are many questions again.

" zebra law "

We need a Zebra Law. Every one  just laughed and thought that concussion after his car accident affected him. He was talking otherwise normal sentences with normal affect.

He was a driver involved in a car accident. He was wearing seat belt, his air bag deployed, and he got multiple injuries. He was rear ended at a pedestrian crossing when he was trying to stop for an inattentive pedestrian, who suddenly stepped on the road and keep walking.  As per this man's recollection, that pedestrian  was fully occupied on his cell phone looking at it with ear plugs. He was not seeing the on coming traffic, as well as not even able to hear wheels and noise of traffic.  No one knew what was so important for him to not pay attention on the road while crossing it. But that is a  daily observation of all of us, pedestrian are more and more self absorbed species like on a suicide mission. They use their right with certain degree of impunity even risking lives: theirs and others.

That pedestrian was saved by the sacrifice of this man, who was now being  treated for  injuries like he was Saving Private Ryan. He got concussion and now he was adamant to have a Zebra Law.

As he became more  stable, I reminded him about his  utterances of words at his presentation to the hospital; some  sentences were logical others were still trying to find meanings. He was confused, and certainly struggling to survive at that time.

He was recovering so I asked  him about the law which he was proposing . He looked at me, and with a clear voice said, Zebra law will require drivers to honk on inattentive pedestrians while on the pedestrian crossings. That will be a Zebra alert and will save lives like a no text and driving law for drivers. We need to respect roads and life.

Sadly, as far as we know that the pedestrian who was saved by this man, will never know about his actions and responsibility for that avoidable accident. He may also not know about this truly unsung hero who saved his life. 

"losing sight to gain vision"

The eye surgery did not go well for him. Being a diabetic was not easy for him, and then the complication associated with high blood sugar arrived for him.

To some, a disease wants to be acknowledged like some tragedies need to be respected; some quietly, others out loud. The proclamation of a diagnosis is not a medal, it is a name tag  assigned to identify that more is coming. There are requirements of life style changes to following diets, watching  calories, getting tested, finger pricks with a glucometer, and keeping up with supplies. There are doctors visits, friends' and family's opinions, people's judgments and comments.  Life is tough and so on.

He was a non-compliant patient as he described himself, who was living to eat. He was not overweight which made him not believe or be convinced by what his doctors were telling him all along.  Then he was diagnosed with Diabetes. He took the news as doom and gloom. He struggled with why me questions. Even then he did not do enough to support his compromised metabolism. He kept his habits, he kept his taste buds happy and it took him no time to get to where other diabetics would have taken years to get to: eye sight issues as a complication of diabetes among other things.

As we were  talking about his diabetic care the other day, he told me about his love for food and what a sacrifice it is to him to not eat what is not good for him. He told me that he is now a very diet conscious person.

To some, there are sacrifices of a preventable nature before the loss of ones eye sight occurs.  It is as if they had the vision to avoid foreseeable future tragedy. Others sadly gain vision only after losing their sight, and contrary to most understandings of conventional wisdom, we may say that hindsight vision is not always twenty-twenty.

"footnotes and fine print"

It appears as no one wants to learn from history. That was true then, it is true now. Look at our politicians. We are all interested in ancestry.com to find out something about us. Some is fantasy, some is curiosity and some has nothing else to do. But what about the connections we already know. The established facts about  our family history and our susceptibility to certain diseases with a reasonable certainty. For example, our DNA and our parents smoking history, their cancers and our smoking habits and our risks. He said it all. He was on a roll, then he had a smile. It looked like that he was in a debate and he just won the argument.

He was a know-it all doctor before professor Google time. I saw him as a patient. He was an inhouse consultant as he designated himself. He was a self proclaimed grand round moderator. The problem was that it was a non stop grand round, like a 24 hours breaking news from a mainstream TV channel. He won't stop talking and listen to others, he was suffering from an illness affecting his mind and body, and others souls. His loved ones were suffering as seeing him fading away in a losing battle of cancer.

He smoked all his life. A better judgment was expected from him. His parents had cancers. But as they say we are humans first then doctors, and we all breath the same air of life: stresses, life events, losses and triumphs. Our daily life goes on as we forget, we ignore, we come up with excuses, we are running around to catch up chores and we lose the things so dear to ourselves, our health.

 As a practicing physician he must have seen patients with cancers and he must have surely given  them advices to stop smoking . I have seen the classic pictures in medical history books where doctors were in pictures, smoking a cigarette or a cigar while in wards seeing  patients. Though it does sound not so classic now but we know that some doctors still smoke and their drinking habits are phenomenal. They are the ones who are at risk by choice.

To some history is a story of past events cataloged in a time stamped calendar, and it is not supposed to teach us anything, it is just what happened then. To others, history has a story header with detailed accounts of cause and effect with  footnotes and fine print. We cannot learn by ignoring the footnotes and fine print of our history, our DNA. We can certainly modify and  change our risk profile, and ultimately make a new history of better us if we just pay enough attention to what is already known to us; our DNA, our family history.

surgical strike vs surgical reforms

Making their child a doctor is many parents' dream . This is especially true in most of the so called  underdeveloped countries, where daily challenges of life make dreams of a beautiful future soften the ugliness of present day survival. There are different reasons besides having prestige in a society, but the bottom line remains that in brining financial security for their children, how much  their parents struggle while supporting them to become doctors.

Doctors are born heroes, they live through life miracles and witness the strength of human beings when the going gets tough. They hold the hands of those who have phantom pain, and those who cannot hold themselves for other reasons of mind and body. They witness the ultimate weakness in our potential inability for self care and dependence on others to feed, clean, hold, and put to bed and bed pan.

Then on the other side, the news flash of the reality that doctors burnout. So many are leaving the profession of health and healing to keep their own sanity. The daily tasks of computer clicks, quality measures, insurance denials, patients demands, cost of medications and  medication rationing; to fit things into the insurance tier, can make these resilent souls have an out-of-body experience on a daily basis.

The other day I was told, "she left last month", one of  the doctors I knew well, and then yesterday, "he left", another doctor I knew. They could not bear the torture of man and machine: administrative and everything electronic. The software for electronic medical records and billing, care more about human clicks on a key board then the tender loving human touch for patients. It is like death by clicks. The odds are against us by the surgical strike brought down by machines and their masters. The burden of that struggle is to balance our computer clicks with human touch in our profession, which has crushed many of our colleagues with beautiful minds and souls.

Now is the time for doctors to look for restorative surgical reforms from becoming stressed, diabetic, obese, hypertensive, alcoholic, bald, big-bellied, thick-glassed, grey-haired and sleep-deprived individuals. We must save ourselves to save humanity; after all we are human first. We need better understanding of self care, sleeping well, eating well and living well to become beautiful like movie stars again. We need to practice what we preach to our patients.  No one will argue that a doctor is always a star in their own lifetime movie, named by living though the stages of life; they are always there ready to provide care.

To some, the fight is to keep up the most precious values of being a doctor alive and well.  Others are sadly down-trodden, though they remember once upon a time they were the guardians of health and healing, too.

"best of both worlds: health and money"

He was suffering from physical ailments but his mind was strong and sharp. He was a successful man from any worldly calculations. He was powerful with his money but weak in health, now he was dying.

As I started to know him with caring for him, I found him interesting. He never complained about why him, with all the this or that of getting sick. He was kind and humble. His lungs were failing him with interstitial lung disease and so was his heart, from right heart failure and pulmonary hypertension.

He was a good man with a good heart, as one of staff member announced one day, and he smiled with a negative nod, which made all of us laugh. We all felt for his struggle of trying to catch his breath to talk, to breath, to eat and to sleep. He was dying, and his oxygen saturation drifted even if the wind blew in a different direction. He was frail, not a candidate for lung transplantation, which he could have opted for if his body would have allowed him. 

To some money is everything, and in the art of getting it deprive their bodies of their well being.  By ignoring the castle, they lead to its fall with inflictions of disease or accident. Others have beliefs like 'money is the root of all evil', and choose to ignore the choices of the good they may do if they had money in the first place.

The wise strive for both money and health. They invest in their health as they do in their money. They are the ones who can enjoy life at its best 'til the last shoe drops. With a long season of spring surrounded by familiar faces, life can be simple by having the best of both worlds; health and money, as without one the other is no fun. Ask any person rich or poor, the answer will not surprise a conscious mind.