safety-lane.com 07105
chiropractic-lane.com
NEWARK
http://www.healthy-lane.com/
Dr. Lane’s Thoughts XXXI
1) I continue to be amazed and enraged (those two words go so well together!) by smokers. I do understand that it is an addiction (self-imposed but still an addiction) but the underlining basis in my relationship to them is an unrequested and unilaterally-agreed compact that says “my abuse of my lungs will be shared with you by my pollution of our mutual air, surfaces, and ground as I fill the air and surfaces with carcinogens, the ground with my cigarette buts, and my breath and yellow teeth with all those who look at me”.
We treat smokers like the obese – we sympathize with them during their struggles and applaud them when they overcome their addiction while also giving them “smoke breaks’ and smoking lounges, and just treating them special. The obese fight for their ‘right’ to be given special accommodations at no greater cost to them on planes and buses while squeezing others in their seats [it is illegal to make them pay for two seats]. There is that ongoing debate if the addiction is to food, or cigarettes, or self-medication for an earlier emotional trauma or overindulgence by parents but, in the end, it is society that pays for it all.
We applaud the financial success of cigarette executives and we talk about the employment of all those factory workers and farmers who depend on these companies for the products whose only purpose is to kill people slowly. I see the results in my office daily and it is heartbreaking.
2)
This is a tribute to my mother. My mother became a widow at 42 six months after having me and my twin brother. She already had 4 other children so she immediately had to raise 6 children including 2 newborns. She could not drive and had only a high school education.
At the age of 53 she went back to school, eventually earning 3 Master’s degrees and was well on her way to her Ph.D. when she was struck with Alzheimer’s disease, eventually dying at the age of 88.
Along the way she lived in France, Greece (each one for a few months), and the People’s Republic of China. She stayed in China for 5 years! Our home always had a stream of people from other countries because Mom became a teacher of English as a foreign language and she would host parties for them at our home.
Who knew that all those students would shape my view of the world so much! While my first marriage ended very quickly – to an American Jewish woman – my second marriage has been much more successful – to a Colombian Catholic woman with two daughters! [It is my personal opinion that once a man sees the beauty of South American women they can never see any other woman the same again].
Mom taught me a lifelong respect for reading and education (and a good cup of coffee). It was only her sacrifice that I was able to go back to school to become a doctor when I was 40!
Not only did she raise 6 kids who all went on to receive advanced degrees but she let us have cats and dogs along the way. Presently I am up to Leo #4 in my home but Mom was there for Leo #1 – Leo #3. Each dog was a rescue from the dog pound.
My mother was strictly Jewish and we had a kosher home celebrating each Jewish holiday according to the Torah. I am much looser now but that solid upbringing allowed me to see the world as a kind place with a strong community.
I think my twin brother and I had the best version of my mom – the one who was patient and learned and probably tired from so many years of kids. She knew that nothing that a kid did that was not permanent was worth losing sleep over: clothing styles, hair length, taste in music, choices in their studies, choices in books, and so on. Because of that I have several useless degrees and many embarrassing photos of myself as I was trying to find my way in the world.
When mom went into the Nursing home for the last 5 years of her life she had forgotten everything and everyone due to Alzheimer’s disease. She never knew who I was when I came by and I would have to remind her my name and our relationship. Interestingly, she never forgot the words to the songs she knew from the 1930s and 1940s and we would sing together which she enjoyed a great deal.
You mother is much smaller physically than you remember. My mother must have never been bigger than 5’2″ and 120 pounds but she always seemed so much larger to me – probably because I saw her stature in her importance to me and her intellect.
She taught me to learn from all doctors on how to be a better doctor so I have taken lesson from my own pediatrician (Dr. Louis Judelsohn who has been gone since 1994), veterinarians, and nurses – all of whom taught me to use my eyes before I used my instruments and to always be kind to the person before me.
She lived through the Great Depression, World War II, The Korean and Vietnam Wars, Watergate, the Attica Riots, the rise of computers and the Internet, and the assassinations of John F. and Robert F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. She also witnessed the rise of China, the Green Revolution, the New Deal, the State of Israel, the fall of Communist Russia, the Civil Rights Movement, a man walking on the moon, and heard some great music from the 1940s through to the 2000s! She also knew the admiration of countless students who she taught English to and, in her own way, closed the gap between the United States and other countries through language and culture.
Mom died 30 days after I received my medical degree and never had a chance to see me rise up and open my own office in NJ. The “Lane” in ‘Safety Lane’ is for her, as well as its initials “SL” [Sylvia Lane].
3) Dr. Louis Judelsohn was my pediatrician and I went to him until I was 21. My mom took me to him since I was born. He had been a pediatrician for 40 years before I met him which meant that he was from a generation that used fewer medications and machines and more observation and simpler solutions to problems. I am sure that he saw more babies being saved through modern medicine the longer he practiced and would never have wanted to go back to “a simpler time” but he also had a great deal to contribute through his own methods.
My mother would bring my twin and me to see him and he would look at us – just look at us – and tell her we were fine and tell her to take us home.
My mother would interject, “but Dr. Judelsohn, you didn’t do anything!”
He would reply, “I did everything. I have been looking at healthy babies for 40 years and I know what healthy babies look like – your sons are moving around the table and responding to my voice, and they have a healthy skin tone and eye color. That is how healthy babies look like and interact with the world so there is nothing for me to do.
Dr. Judelsohn knew that observation is what doctors must do best. Symptoms are to be responded to and unhealthy babies and children must be brought back to healthy. Any other responsibilities are outside a doctor’s realm.
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