I have spent my life in the church, and, from about age 15 on, I was one of the dreaded “PKs.” That’s right, a preacher’s kid. Right up there with MKs (missionary kids) in our capacity for disruption, PKs can be a handful. But one of the great things about being a PK was having […]
Wholly Healthy: Love Heals
Many years ago, I was reading “In His Image,” a book by Dr. Paul Brand. Brand, some will recall, was a pioneering plastic surgeon doing incredible mission work in India, operating on those afflicted with Hansen’s disease, or leprosy. Prior to that, he had experience operating on pilots who survived crashes during the Battle of […]
Wholly Healthy: Got a Headache?
Headaches come in many varieties. Perhaps the most common are simply muscle-tension headaches, in which muscles of the neck and scalp contract and cause garden-variety misery. This time of year, some headaches are precipitated by allergies, as nasal congestion and sinus fullness cause irritation and pain. Similarly, sinus infections cause many headaches and are typically […]
Wholly Healthy: Growing Old
One of the hardest things in medicine is watching as adult children have to contend with the decline of their parents. It is always a time of adjustment and struggle for all parties when recently healthy, independent parents become incapable of functioning as before. It seems only rational then to plan for that time. This […]
Wholly Healthy: Prepare for Spring
It’s still winter, but spring is on its way. One day we’ll look back and see that COVID and all of the chaos of our world is in the rearview mirror. One day we’ll emerge from this darkness and stretch in the light. However, we have to be ready. Spring is like that. It makes […]
Wholly Healthy: Why Do People Keep Going to Church?
Physicians in general are a pretty intelligent group of professionals. However, we sometimes make the mistake of thinking that because we know a lot about one particular thing, we must also know a lot about almost everything. However, given the exploding pace of advancing knowledge, that idea is arrogant. But it isn’t just science and […]
Wholly Healthy: Winter Advice
I have taken care of some very, very cold patients over the years. When I was a medical student, there was a man who accidentally bodysurfed a river — in winter, in northern West Virginia. There was one who stood resolutely in the middle of a pond in January, up to his waist in water, […]
Wholly Healthy: Christmas Therapy
It doesn’t take a physician to say that these are difficult times, resulting in significant depression and anxiety. We have pandemic, social upheaval and political theater. And all of it transmitted to us 24/7/365 on cable and satellite. Worse, it comes to us on our home computers, and on the smartphones we carry around and […]
Wholly Healthy: Abortion Reversal
Women who are pregnant have the option of terminating their pregnancies two ways. One is by having an abortion procedure. The other, however, is to take pills obtained from Planned Parenthood, personal physicians or even online. Taken early in pregnancy, these pills end the pregnancy. There is a powerful movement to make those pills available […]
Wholly Healthy: Viewing Violence
One of the things I always told my sons as they grew into adulthood was to avoid fights. And the best way to avoid fights is generally to keep one’s mouth shut and not argue with angry people. It can be a tall order for a young male, full of life, health and testosterone, but […]