You may recall my experience several weeks ago when there was a “code blue” called in the oncology clinic at Swedish Cancer Institute. 20-30 medical personnel swarmed over from the hospital to attend to a man who had lost consciousness during his medical exam. I had a similar experience today except that the “code blue” occurred in my office! I walked out of my office to the waiting room. My friend and office mate, Steve, opened his door and quietly told me, “My patient is having a medical situation. He is really disoriented and I called 911.” I asked him if he needed help, he declined, and since there were people in the waiting room, I decided the best thing I could do would be to go back to my office and calmly carry on until my next patients arrived.

Paramedics arrived a couple of minutes later. It turned out that the patient was diabetic so they thought he probably just had low blood sugar. So Steve came by and asked me if I had any food. I gave him a granola bar and some crackers. Having worked with teens with diabetes as a psychology intern, I knew that people can get really cranky when they have low blood sugar. Sure enough, Steve’s patient was not thrilled with the snack options that I dug out of the bottom of Jennie’s and my desk drawer. Steve went to one of the restaurants nearby and got a soda. Apparently, he was not drinking it very fast so Steve asked me if I had any sugar packets. No luck there so he went off again to one of our neighboring restaurants.

I didn’t see any of this, but Steve told me that in the few minutes it took him to return with sugar packets, his patient had sprung back to life. He’d gotten enough soda into his system. The paramedics left and the patient drove himself home. Crisis averted!

So maybe this isn’t really a “code blue” but again, I am not a physician so how am I to know? I admired Steve’s calm throughout all of this. I’m glad that there are safety nets in life like 911. But people, take care of yourselves! If you have diabetes, breakfast skipping is not allowed! It was a good reminder to me to continue to care for myself and try to remain calm during the bumpy parts of life.

My mom is awesome every day but it is worth special mention today because it is her birthday. She was born on the very same day as another spicy Italian beauty, Sophia Loren. Unlike Sophia Loren, my mom didn’t star in films, some wearing a garter belt and bustier. I do have to say that she absolutely rocked a Puccini-esque print mini skirt and false eyelashes when we were kids. We have a picture of my mom in this outfit (she also wore a fall well before the hair extensions era). In the wrong hands, this ensemble could have been tacky. But she looked downright glamorous all the more impressive since her six children, aged between 3 and 14 years are also in the picture. And we do not look glamorous. We look like we are a lot of work.

My mom has a lot of energy. She often tells me, “I don’t know how you do it” referring to my career and family life. I am convinced that what she did was much more difficult. She went beyond normal mom stuff. My mom sewed some of our clothes, made us stuffed toys and dolls, did crafts with us, kept a huge garden, volunteered at school, sang at church, and much much more. My mom is also so organized! I remember waking up each morning to our lunches and morning vitamins all laid out on the kitchen counter. And she hasn’t stopped organizing. And every time I visit the yard looks fantastic and the house is clean. She’ll say, “Oh, my house is so dirty.” That’s when I feel like I should never have her to my house again. If you think your house is dirty…

But the best things about my mom are that she is loving, fun, generous, and a fabulous grandmother. She keeps track of all of us kids still as well as all of the important event in our life. And she is the only person in my life who thinks I have a beautiful singing voice. (She hears what it could have been like if I’d taken lessons and practiced, which is loads better than it actually sounds.)

Happy Birthday, Mom!

I continued to be grateful for all of the wonderful care I have received from others. Cancer is one of those, “it takes a village” kind of conditions and I have greatly benefited from my treatment by so many villagers. My professional specialty, ADHD, is also one of those “it takes a village” kind of conditions. I am gratified in my work for all of the support that the various villagers, teachers, therapists, parents, physicians, occupational therapists, tutors, etc offer to the kids I see. However, it is unusual for all of the villagers, in the case of kids with ADHD, to be on the same page. People with ADHD often have behavior problems that are irritating, challenging, and sometimes unsafe for others. Even without behavior problems, it is hard for others to understand the inconsistency of their performance, why it is so hard for them to develop good organizational habits and such. To add to the confusion, people with ADHD do not have trouble attending to or persisting on tasks that are enjoyable. It looks like they “can do it when they want to” and for boring or frustrating tasks, they just need to gut through them like the rest of us. But “gutting through” the frustrating, the uninteresting, and the mundane is extremely difficult. Since people are individuals with different strengths and weaknesses and ADHD can vary considerably in terms of symptom presentation and severity from person to person, it can look very different from person to person.

Often kids with ADHD get blamed for their problems even though they are primarily due to their very serious and chronic disability. People with say, “He should be able to do x and y. He shouldn’t still be doing z.” All the “should” tells you is that a child hasn’t reached your expectations. It also often tells you that you are frustrated with the child and perhaps not sure how to help. Unfortunately, this state of affairs sometimes leads to giving up and concluding that the kid is just “bad” or “lazy” or some other harmful label.

I have been treated for breast cancer since May 25th. No one has blamed me for my disease. And I don’t blame myself either but I do know that I put myself at higher risk for the disease by being overweight on and off for so many years. Nonetheless, people have been motivated to help me and to treat me with compassion. People don’t give themselves ADHD. It is largely genetic and the non-genetic factors such as poor prenatal care and early malnutrition are not ones over which kids have control. I’ve seen kids as young as 4 being blamed for their disability. I wish these children could more frequent enjoy the same love and compassion as a 46 year-old lady with breast cancer.