Dr. Lisa's Bountiful Life

Look Beyond

There is beauty in looking beyond.

Most of us are guilty of seeing things for what we believe them to be, rather than what they are.

We are startled when they are revealed to be more.

We are startled when we realize that we are capable of understanding things in new ways, and in sharing this understanding with others.

I began the journey to 'doctorhood' at the tender age of 17: the year I graduated from high school.

As a pre-med student, my time was spent examining things from a scientific perspective. I took classes in calculus and organic chemistry; biology and physics.

I continued the scientific path through medical school, residency and fellowship education.

I was trained to see people as interesting puzzles that required solving. 

I was trained to see the world as a larger ecosystem within which my fellow human creatures and I existed.

Several years ago, I began to look beyond what I had been trained to see.

Carrying my camera with me while running, I paid careful attention to my surroundings, seeking shots that would represent the beauty of the ecosystem in which I lived.

I was amazed by how much there was to notice--and how much I had been missing.

At about the same time, I took up the study of acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine.

Again, I was astounded at how much more there was to understand about my fellow humans.

I have never been able to return to a strictly scientific medical practice.

Nor have I been able to return to a strictly scientific way of living.

I am dazzled, daily, by the beauty that surrounds me. 

I am challenged, daily, to look beyond.

 

From the rocky coast to the western mountains, Maine is home to vistas wild and wonderful. It is also home to the Maine Media Workshops + College in Rockport, where photographers hone their skills in order to fully capture Maine’s great beauty. This week on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour we celebrate the school’s fortieth anniversary with internationally known photographer Barbara Goodbody, and Maine Media president Meg Weston. Join us! 

Box Cutting

As a physician trained in public health, acupuncture and Chinese medicine, I haven’t spent much time “in the box.”

Though I respect tradition, I also see it as a place from which to progress.

Isaac Newton is reputed to have said, “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”

We each have known the benefit of legacy; of the bounty afforded us by our forefathers--and foremothers.

If we stop to consider this bounty, we realize that we owe much to those who came before us.

We also realize that the only means of repayment is through leaving our own legacy for those who will come after.

And thus the need to emerge from the box, and see how our perspective changes.

This week on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour, we meet four guests who share with us unique perspectives on the world.

Tom and Lee Ann Szelog spent more than a decade living in a Maine lighthouse before moving to a solitary cabin in the woods. Zachary Theberge chose to make use of his college education by sharing a love of the outdoors with campers at the University of Maine 4H Camp at Bryant Pond.

Dr. Stephen Donnelly journeyed beyond the boundaries of western medicine to offer a more integrated model of care to his pediatric patients

Each climbed up upon the shoulders of giants so that he might see further.

That climb would not have been possible had they chosen to remain within the comfortable confines of their life’s boxes.

There is a beautiful world to be experienced outside of the box, once we realize that the box we believe ourselves to inhabit doesn’t really exist at all.

 

Fertile Ground

I come from an unusually large family.

My parents had ten children in sixteen years, including one set of twins.

I was the oldest.

Raised in a suburban Maine town, mine was not an experience shared by many.

That my parents were so obviously fertile caused me no end of embarrassment as a youngster.

“Another one?” my schoolmates would ask. “How many kids do your parents plan on having, anyway?” I could not answer that question until after my youngest brother was born during the autumn of my senior year in high school.

Ten. That was the final number.

Though I had often suggested that I would never have children myself (having helped raise enough of them already), I became pregnant with my son at the tender age of 21. As a first year medical student, living two states away from my then-husband who visited only on weekends, I was surprised by this turn of events.

Surprised, and again, slightly embarrassed. I cannot explain why I would have felt shame over so normal a human function. Now a mother of three, and proud big sister and aunt to many, I have greatly benefited from fortuitous biology.

Others are not so lucky.

As our guests on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour remind us this week, fertility does not naturally come to all.

Fertility and adoption counselor Anne Belden and reproductive endocrinologist Dr. Ben Lannon have worked with countless couples for whom having a baby becomes a challenging ordeal. They describe the shame felt by men and women who cannot accomplish what they are told should occur “naturally.”

Fertility issues, for some strange reason, remain one of medicine’s “dirty little secrets.” I come from an unusually large family. My parents’ fertility status was no secret.

The early embarrassment I felt over this--and my own discomfort following the surprise pregnancy with my son-- in no way matches what couples who struggle with fertility must feel.

But I have great compassion for those who experience embarrassment over something they cannot control.

I hope that fertility, whether abundant , inadvertent or lacking, will someday be treated for exactly what it is: a human function about which nobody should feel shame.

 

Remembering Dr. Nye

My high school principal died of Parkinson's in 2012.

Dr. Kenneth Nye was just seventy, and had struggled for fifteen years with this disease.

Dr. Nye was a fine educator. Many a young Belisle graduated from Yarmouth High School having benefitted from his leadership. He was named Maine's Principal of the Year in 1993.

Despite his diagnosis, Dr. Nye lived his life fully and completely.

At age sixty, he became a poet. He published four books of poetry, one of which included the piece Going Home at Twilight:

Coming down the trail at twilight,
I am perilously close to
being stranded in darkness.
Earlier I had figured
I could ski the loop
before it got dark.
I was wrong.
But I know where I am,
and in the dwindling light
I see the trail, and the trail
will bring me home.

 According to his obituary, Dr. Nye enjoyed, "crafting pewter soldiers, his favorite toys from childhood. His love of gardening, bird-watching, travel, literature, tractors, riddle/joke/storytelling, swimming, sailing, ice cream, musicals, etc., kept him engaged in life to the last."

Dr. Nye was a vibrant, intelligent man. It seemed particularly ironic that a disease of the brain and nervous system would prove his undoing.

People like Ken Nye remind us that Parkinson's Disease, though yet incurable, can be managed better, longer, by staying active.

Here in Maine, we are fortunate to have researchers such as Dr. James Cavanaugh from the University of New England examining the relationship between Parkinson's and physical activity.

We are equally fortunate to have places such as the Medically Oriented Gym in South Portland, offering settings where Parkinson's patients can exercise in a supervised setting.

Sometimes the simplest approaches to healing yield the best, and least expensive, results.

Sometimes, although we may feel that we are stranded in the darkness, we need only go back to basics, to find that we know where we are.

Dr. Kenneth Nye always knew where he was. He knew that he was meant to engage fully during each of the seven decades he was given to live.

He also knew that in his twilight years, he was on the trail that would finally lead him home.

 

twilight

March 2013

Hear our interview with Dr. James Cavanaugh and Jacalyn Morrill of the Medically Oriented Gym this Sunday on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour & Podcast. Download the podcast through iTunes.