Los Jordan Polings Vamos al Ecuador

On Saturday 12/3, I received a WhatsApp message from my sister that my mom had taken a fall at her home in Santa Rosa and was in the emergency room. Mom was alone when she fell and not able to remember what happened. She needed stitches to a complex ear laceration, and x-rays revealed that she had fractured her pelvis. Ugh. She would not be able to go home. This was exactly the health crisis I was hoping would not happen during our year away. Later that same evening, while we were getting ready to attend a special Christmas dinner at a friend's house deep in the Amazon jungle, Brynna ran into a corner of our wooden boarding house and sustained a large cut to her forehead that required stitches. Unfortunately, the tiny rural hospital did not have the appropriate suture material for the repair. Thus ensued an hours-long escapade to obtain the suture thread and get it to where we were staying. Many thanks to 1) my dear friend, Alba who became an instant case manager, 2) Silvana, who o...

                                                 In 2002, when I started medical school and met my friend, Michelle, we bonded instantly over a mutual adoration of Ecuador. During almost the exact time I had been living in Ecuador as a Peace Corps Volunteer, Michelle was studying abroad at Catholic University in Quito. Our experiences were worlds apart -- she was in the city at an academic institution, honing her Spanish literacy and summiting mountain peaks; I was in the  campo   learning to speak Spanish by immersion as well as how to milk cows and harvest yuca. Yet, we both fell in love with the beauty, nature, cultures, and people of Ecuador. Our shared love of Ecuador nurtured the early stages of our friendship. In the ensuing years, Michelle, and I traveled on three continents together: five weeks in Vietnam in 2004 during medical school, four week...

I have an annoying habit of singing the 1995 TLC song " Waterfalls " when our family is hiking anywhere near water; the song loops endlessly when our actual destination is a waterfall. My kids are not yet embarrassed or annoyed by me (I know, that is coming), so for now they join me in singing as we hike along. "Don't go chasing waterfalls, please stick to the rivers and the lakes that you're used to." Recently, astute Brynna realized that the central message of the song did not resonate with her personal philosophy or with our family's adventuring, so she rewrote the chorus. "No, mommy," she corrects me, "It should say, 'DO go chasing waterfalls. DON'T stick to the rivers and the lakes that you are used to." It makes so much more sense to her. I have to agree with my wise five-year-old's lyric modifications on two accounts. First, waterfalls are definitely worth chasing, ...

A dear friend and colleague, Jim Dolan, and I have been arguing for years about the inherent value (or lack of value) of alcohol in our society. Usually, we have these discussions as we care for an adult medicine service brimming with patients with alcohol-related illness, most often complications of alcoholic cirrhosis and alcohol withdrawal. These patients are terribly sick, sick enough to be hospitalized. We have had patients on our service as young as 21, and, not uncommonly, dying patients under age 30. We may concurrently have a patient in his late 60s or even 70s, who has been drinking heavily their entire life, and only now is it causing serious illness. That very week, you may catch us chatting over lunch about taking visiting friends to local breweries or wine tastings and attending house parties where alcohol is flowing. It is all very confusing. The center of Dolan's argument that alcohol is "good" and maybe even "necessary" is that alcohol allows f...