#269 - Dr. SH

A long, long time ago on post #2, I wrote about a physician who had dedicated his life to the practice of medicine.  This post is about his son, who has always been a close friend of mine, and who has also dedicated his life to healing the sick.

He is a year older than me, and I always remember his birthday because it is on the same day as my grandfather's.  Many of the family vacations that I have mentioned from time to time in this blog were usually taken with #269 and his family.  He and I attended the same elementary school and high school, and have been known to take our own families on a few vacations together. (Which has gotten harder as his family has gotten larger :)

Things that come to mind when I think about growing up with #269:

*  Always smiling which earned him the nickname "Smiley" in parts of his childhood.

*  Our parents must have gotten together and decided that all of their kids needed to learn how to play some sort of musical instrument.  I played the piano, the flute, and the guitar.  #269 played the saxophone and the guitar.  We both were in the band at good old MICS.  The band director has the longest hair ever, and all the time she wasn't teaching music, was spent riding horses.  We would always see her riding at the end of the Mardi Gras parades.  #269 and I also were part of the group that played the guitar for school masses under the direction of blog post # 207.  I will come clean and state for the record that I would always try to get to the back of church first on mass days.  #269 had a much nicer guitar than I did and I would take his out and use it for mass if I got there first.  #269 was always too much of a gentleman to call me on it.  (Good home training!)  The other thing that I remember about our musical careers (lol) is that every Christmas our families would get together and every child would bring his/her instrument.  The adults would sit as a captive audience and listen to us struggle through our Christmas concerts.  I don't think we were all that good, but they made us feel like rock stars! (Rock stars with flutes! lol)

*  Our parents were friends and really involved in our little school, and I remember doing sports things together.  At one point, I have a vague recollection of being on the MICS basketball team and having our parents as coaches.  Having practice on Saturday mornings at the Lisa Park gym, and always having to be on the "shirts" team when we played "Shirts vs. Skins."  Basketball, dad?  Really?

*  I have many memories of our families' trips to G.I. which include lots of skiing, jet-skiing, zinc oxide, tennis shoes and old bathing suits to avoid the oil on the beach, and the girls stealing the boys underwear and either freezing them or flying them up the flagpole.

#269 is now a married man with six kids of his own.  He has one son who is the spitting image of him, and when he smiles, I swear I am transported back to years ago.  He also has a beautiful wife and five beautiful and very athletic daughters all of whom keep them very, very busy.  He is my kid's doctor and for this I must compliment him.  He is very thorough and great with my kids (even when all 180 lbs of one of them hide behind the table to avoid the shots :) and listens patiently to all of the strange ailments we have had from time to time over the years.

One last story about #269.  Last summer, we had an unfortunate incident where our oldest son slipped poolside and we ended up in an out of town ER.  The doctor who evaluated him was very thorough and very cautious.  I'm sure she knew what she was doing, but when she told me that we should travel about an hour out of our way to get home in order to be sure we stayed near trauma centers in case of emergency, I'll have to admit, I panicked a little.  As I watched my son sleep (from a straight back chair in the ER for about 8 hours), I was making myself crazy wondering if he was going to be okay.  I finally texted #269 about 5:00 am with a brief explanation of what had happened, and a plea to give me a call when he got the message.  Within minutes my phone rang.  It was his day off and he was up early to go fishing.  He listened as I explained the details...asked a few questions of his own...and then reassured me that he thought B was fine and we could bring him home and should not have any problems.  I don't think I can really express in words the relief that I felt hearing his opinion of the situation.  What it boils down to is this.  Like blog post #2, I trust #269.  I know that he cares and that he is very good at what he does.  He does not take things lightly, but he also does not panic.  I feel very fortunate to have both of these men as my family doctors.