Month: May 2025

May 9, 2025

by Dr. Plastic Picker

It’s 6:12am and I’m getting back to my happy place. I’m actually seeing my own doctor today, and I will ask for advice about how to manage perimenopause / menopause symptoms. It’s a common topic of conversation in the clinic these days, as I’m chatting with my patients and their parents that I’ve known for over a decade. Many of us are going through it, and it’s good to ask my actual doctor advice about what to do. I’m taking a much needed planned sick day, and I need to get my COVID booster as well. I will try to do that in clinic. I’m hoping I can get labs done as well. It’s a very busy weekend and the next few days. But it’s good to take some time to reflect and remember all that is happening.

I’m trying to run a mile a morning when I can find the time. I think to myself, “I can give myself a mile.” I’m thinking about my heart and my health. I’m taking fish oil here and there. There is a bottle in the middle of our kitchen table, and when we sit down to eat – Mr. Plastic Picker and I at times will take a gel capsule. There are 145 capsules in that bottle, but there are still many capsules left. It shows you how often we don’t eat together and that we aren’t mindful to think about our own health. But we are trying as we are also working toward a sustainable future for our children. And want to actually be alive for our grandchildren.

Part of that work in making sure we have grandchildren, is helping an amazing friend and climate advocate and pediatrician organize the District 8 heat summit. I’ve been calling it the heat summit, because the one in San Diego is named H3SD San Diego’s Heat and Human Health Summit. But my friend QT Nguyen, who is also a Harvard grad and a friend through the Harvard Vietnamese Association (although we are friends through many more things than that), has named it “From Extreme Heat to Fire: Disparate Effects Through the Arc of Human Health.” I’m fully appreciating the name, as it’s so – her. Bigger, more dramatic, and more eloquent than our straight-forward name. And honestly the name is apt. It’s scope is broader. It’s ask is bigger. The audience is grander.

QT. Honestly when I suggested you do this, I had no idea it would become such a massive thing that is so hopeful and wonderful for the earth. I don’t think I quite understood how your brain works, and how organized and energized it is. I had no idea that you would be putting me to work! Which I’m excited about, especially learning the new skill in successfully moderating a summit session. I brought along these wonderful premedical students from the UCSD Academic Internship Program and an amazing student from UC Berkeley, and that was what you needed to help you get this massive thing done. Where there is a will, there is a way. And your will and want of a livable future for your two beautiful daughters is so very evident in what this event is turning out to be.

I had the program printed out and was reviewing the times I needed to be present, and thinking out loud about what I needed to do and say. I brought out a highlighter and a pencil, and started making notes and writing down thoughts. I thought this would be an easy thing to do, but it was incredibly difficult for you and me. Thinking back to the number of virtual meetings we did, and trying to catch up with what was happening – I’m amazed that it all came together. I don’t think the students fully understood as well. But it’s all been so incredibly invigorating and fun, and hopeful.

I haven’t been blogging as much but today was an important day to document that this amazing thing is happening. It’s connecting the entire District 8 of the AAP, and myself and you, and you to your UCSD roots. It’s connecting a lot of like-minded folks that will synergize and further the work that they are doing.

I had no idea that this event would be this awesome. And honestly I always knew you were amazing, but now I know the full extent. I’m glad the admissions committee back decades ago accepted this petite Vietnamese girl from Orange County into the Harvard Class of 2001. I’m so glad I met you and became your big sib through Harvard Vietnamese Association. That we ended up doing BRYE tutoring together, PBHA and lived in the same house. Who knew that almost 3 decades later, we’d need each other to save the actual earth. When there is a planetary code, you call on the best and your friends. And I called on you, and you came. It’s amazing but brings me to tears at times. Who knew it would get this bad? We were so young back then, and now we are older and need each other to help save the climate for our daughters.

May 1, 2025

by Dr. Plastic Picker

That is the only way I can describe it. For the last 3 years, I’ve been involved in so much pollution work and on social media sharing this journey. I think part of the reason for my overall state of health may have been poor sleep, too much netflix and a large part the normal body changes of peri-menopause and menopause. I’m still working pretty much full time and no longer giving away those extra shifts that we are asked to work (although it’s manageable now – or at least a bit more). Patients are more sick due to air pollution (wildfires and Tijuana Sewage hydrogen sulfide gas). So the only way I can describe my mental state when I seemed happy (and I was) but a bit scatter brained is that my mind was fracturing. I did an epic trash art piece and it’s private and I won’t share it here, but it shows you how fractured my mind is right now.

So like any good physician, I heal myself. So how am I healing myself. I am learning to say no. I am saying no to additional speaking engagements that do not bring me joy. I am saying no to additional students since the ones we have are more than enough. I am saying no to some on social media that have formed an attachment to me that is not healthy for me, because I have never sought to be their physician or mentor.

I am saying yes to the UCSD Academic Internship Program, which formalizes some of this work that I’ve been doing. This also enables me to say no to students from other universities. I really am not responsible for the entire state of California. I am saying yes to running 1 -1 .5 miles in the morning. I took a break this morning, but the last two morning I have run 4-6 times around the block. I can run a mile. All of us can run a mile. It has been really good, and I’ve incorporated some stretching as well. I am saying yes to having coffee/matcha with students here and there. I am saying yes to holding my daughter’s hand. I am saying yes to cooking again, and thinking about muffins and berry breads that bring me joy in the morning and feed those I love. I am saying yes refocusing on my finances, because my time is my money and it seems like there are constant asks for money. I am here to help the earth and not the finances of students or other physicians. I don’t understand why folks don’t understand that. If you tell me your parents have worked as many hours as I have and Mr. Plastic Picker and his parents combined, than I may consider. I highly doubt it though. Your parents can work to pay for your school since you are clearly an upper middle class student. There are many more students worse off than you.

I am saying no to those who want too much from me, and need to contribute more to the earth. I am saying yes to new experiences.

And I needed to tell those who read this blog. I am amazed that there are more and more, despite my not blogging much these days! Thank you for following along this journey. I forgot that the most important thing I can do is to inspire. And it’s not the quantity of those that I can inspire. It’s those key folks out there who see what I am doing, and believe they can incorporate some of my workflows into their lives. Mostly other physicians and pediatricians.

And for those fellow physicians, you understand that again I can get burned out. That this work can take it’s toll, especially when you are in the middle of so much pollution and so many who are looking for leadership.

But having our daughter keeps me grounded. She (and her brother) are my climate why. And it’s always been about having some sort of livable future for them. But I need to spend time with her now, and it’s my turn to hold her hand and celebrate her wins. There are other pediatric climate and health advocates out there, but I am her only mommy. When my mind was fractured, I would zero in on her. On her life. her journey. Her art. Her beauty. Her innocence and every day left of being sixteen. She’ll be seventeen soon. And honestly that is the most important thing in the world to be now. I remember when she was just born and there was the real fear that she would not come out of the NICU a healthy baby. And now she is 17 and wants a cake that has a dancing queen on it.

Saying no to some things. Saying yes to others. Means I remember she asked for a special cake for her birthday this weekend. 17 and a dancing queen. And haven’t you been an absolute miracle child and you won another national award. Mommy loves you so much. Thank you for being my baby.