May 3, 2022

by Dr. Plastic Picker

I’ve never understood regret. The Korean word for regret is 후회. Honestly, I don’t think I even know the word in Vietnamese despite being fluent. Just googled it. I do know the word. It’s tiếc. I guess I don’t hear my parents regretting that much growing up, unless it was a some food that was actually spilled. I remember once going to Costco (Price Club back in the day) and an entire large tray of eggs flipped and was summarily all broken and unedible. My father, young back then, had been joyriding on the shopping cart which caused the tray of eggs to be broken. My mother probably did regret it, and likely said ” tiếc” in Vietnamese. But I don’t think my father would have regretted that moment, because I remember him laughing and joyful and handsome in a young father way.

So here I am, older than my father when he was joy riding in the Costco (formerly Price Club) parking lot on the shopping cart. The tray of eggs, since they were mostly biodegradable, have been cycled back into the earth somehow (hopefully). And I’m thinking of regrets.

I’m thinking of regrets because I talk to more people now. No, that’s not true. I’m listening to more people now. I’m trying to share the burden of more of my friends, especially climate friends. And what I’m hearing is regrets. I’m hearing reflections. I’m hearing them processing professional and personal experiences and wondering, was it worth that time? Was it worth all those sessions preparing, when the session did not go as planned? After the comments, after the rejections, was it worth it?

I listenend and shared and tried to reflect some of their emotions back. Friends are dealing with it. Job rejections. Grant rejections. Feedback that may be intended to be constructive but feels like professional rejection or dismissal of your efforts.

I don’t have regrets. That’s all I can tell the readership. It’s your journey and it’s often circuitous, and that wandering in life is what makes it yours. Maybe that’s the commonality among those I love personally and professionally and their difficulty in processing things. They’ve never been rejected that much, and they live with too much regret when it rarely happens.

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April 30, 2022

by Dr. Plastic Picker

OMG it’s April 30th today! It’s actually the anniversary of the fall of Saigon and the mass migration of Vietnamese people overseas after the communist takeover of the south. I call it Saigon, and if you call it something else – than obviously we have an issue with eachother. I didn’t notice the date until I started blogging this morning.

No one in my household really gets how important April 30th is. I love and live in a household of Koreans. This is not by design but by chance. Usually your enemy’s enemy is your friend, and I often wonder if this is why Mr. Plastic Picker and I were destined for eachother? It’s more likely he was cute and I was cute, and we were lab partners in premed biology. I can’t explain why, but I knew Mr. Plastic Picker was the one, because he smelled a certain way. It was definitely pheremones. But I often think of the colonial ramifications of our union that transecend the premedical sciences.

It’s the last day of April, and the anniversary of the fall of Saigon. It’s been a whirld-wind month of climate projects and work. Since Saigon fell, I ended up being born in the United States of America – having been conceived enroute during my parents flight from totalitarianism and communism. And then I ended up marrying a Korean boy. And this is why my children are half Korean/half Vietnamese but don’t speak much Vietnamese but love Vietnamese food. The same drama is happening all over the world, and now again in Ukraine. Greed. Limited resources. Corruption. It leads to people being displaced and creation of new alliances.

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April 26, 2022

by Dr. Plastic Picker

Like many I’ve flown many times. At some points, we were very bicostal. My sister and I were studying college and graduate school in New England and our family home was in Southern California. Then trying to maintain familial relationships with all our New York relatives when Mr. Plastic Picker and I relocated our family back to San Diego required flying. But with the COVID pandemic, most of us stopped flying. I flew for just the second time in the last three years to Denver this last weekend, double masked at the end and only furtively taking sips of water when I felt dehydrated. I don’t fly lightly or without reason especially since there is still COVID and especially since I know it’s spewing carbon into the air.

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April 21, 2022

by Dr. Plastic Picker

Wow. My body is tired. I now realize my binge-watching Kdramas (and I’ve been a bad middle-aged mommy and binge-watching a lot) has been kind of excessive. I now realize that some of this is not unlike people who drink alcohol (which I do not but I am not judging) to numb themselves. I now realize that ending my traditional middle management career at five years of Assistant Chief was an emotionally hard and wrenching decision. I was numbing myself from the emotional fallout. The fallout, ended up being the emails and calls from some upper management that never materialized. I know that they too are just cogs in the HMO machinery, but to say that I am slightly disappointed would be true. I think all of us deep down all want to be recognized. Since I’m a metric oriented person, I know objectively I did so much in the five years that I was Assistant Boss. But now that I’m at that age of being a middle aged palindrome, where my age is the same read forwards and backwards, I realize that it was meant to be. I’m meant to decide where my path goes. Read forward or backwards, I’m still me and actually more fundamentally me that I could ever be.

So with those convulated thoughts, something amazing happened yesterday at our HMO. I was one instructor at one of the breakout sessions, but my climate HMO Friend Dr. RA organized one of hte first of it’s kind San Diego wide climate symposiums with cross institutional participation on the instructor and resident side from all the major Family Practice and Emergency Medicine departments. It was very epic and she has her own narrative that she will share soon in an academic piece.

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April 19, 2022

by Dr. Plastic Picker

It’s 7am at the Plastic Picker household and we’re continuing to put our extracurricular efforts into trying to save the planet! Reminder! Dr. Plastic Picker despite giving notice that I’m stepping down from my official middle-management role (although I’m now the ping pong tournament organizer for our big HMO office!) am still a practicing pediatrician working essentially full time. Five years is a long time to do anything, and the middle-management work although I was back to being good at doing it – honestly was like attending histology class in medical school or going to the dentist. I could convince myself it was good for me, but it stopped being fun.

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April 15, 2022

by Dr. Plastic Picker

We are back after one of the most unexpected vacations we’ve ever had. We were supposed to be in Hawaii staying at a family home, but ended up in San Francisco because of a once in a lifetime Oregon snowstorm that closed the I-5 up to our farm.

Let me explain. Our daughter was in Alaska on a once-in-a-lifetime school trip and she was exposed to COVID-19 by very close contacts. Even though we technically could have traveled and she had tested negative on day 3 after exposure and not ill and Hawaii stopped checking, we did not travel to Hawaii. The decision to not fly to Hawaii is because it was the right thing to do. We worried about being stuck in Hawaii if someone in the family became sick. We worried about having to take care of her, being an ex-preemie and formerly more sick when she was younger, out of state. We worried even just having to miss work, even though we both haven’t used any of our COVID time alloted by the state and the HMO, because we are health professionals who if we get sick – have large ripple effects on our patients. We try to avoid having to do that for our fellow physicians. If everyone did this, the whole system would run better – but that’s a discussion for later. We called a close friend for advice, and appreciated her listening to us. In the end, we made the decision that was right for our family which was to take a road trip. In the end our daughter did not end up getting COVID, and no matter what we are grateful for at least that.

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April 10, 2022

by Dr. Plastic Picker

I’ve been thinking about the power of speech, the power of words and the power of voice lately. When babies are born, a good measure of how healthy they are is the volume of their cry. If a baby comes out into the world crying and screaming, then things are working. The lungs are working. The heart is working, and usually the APGAR scores (the measure at birth of how healthy they are) are high.

Our daughter the last few weeks has composed several spoken word poems that simply amazed me. I’m not one to give credit where credit is not due. I think I’m relatively objective when evaluated my own children’s writing. She was good both the composition of the poem and the deliver. She was very very good.

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April 8, 2022

by Dr. Plastic Picker

It’s 528am and our daughter has returned from her epic-once-in-a-lifetime school trip. So far no COVID. I had a fleeting sore throat and it’s gone now. My teenage son and I also took a rapid home covid test, which were both negative. It’s a Friday and it’s payday, and this is when I usually do the accounting for the family and the impact I’ve had on the earth.

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April 6, 2022

by Dr. Plastic Picker

Yep. Here we go. We made the radio KPBS midday edition and the online article came out regarding the Youth Arts Exhibition at The Studio Door https://thestudiodoor.com/. OMG, I just went on their website, and our picture is front and center!

The picture above is filled with love and joy and hope. Each one of those individuals is a shining light. I do have to say that I’m the shortest, and almost the oldest. The fellow pediatrician on the far right is a good friend but honestly I think a few months older and initially I thought was a vampire. Dr. C is from Romania near Dracula’s castle. But I’ve seen him now in nature’s light, and there were no fangs – just a beautiful artistic soul encased in a pediatrician’s highly trained armour.

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April 4, 2022

by Dr. Plastic Picker

It’s Monday morning at 632am, and I’m sitting at the kitchen table that has been thrice handed down. It’s my mother-in-law this morning instead of my father-in-law, as she is boiling something on the stove. The blue light of the fire on the kitchen range is something that defines my morning. It’s either lemon tea, porridge or water for their coffee that is the focus of the first fire. At some point we will need to get an induction stovetop as it does not make climate sense to burn methane (natural gas), but it’s on our to-do list. The parents-in-law are getting their COVID 2nd booster today. My mother-in-law told me, and I had heard from Mr. Plastic Picker already. Eventhough I already knew, I have learned to be quieter and listen to her and nod. Ask her a short question to make sure I knew that she knew I cared.

It’s a quiet weekend because the vibrant energy of our daughter is out of state, on a once-in-a-lifetime for most children school trip to Alaska. We try to raise her the way we were raised, without too much emphasis on material things. But both her parents are doctors, and her little private school enabled me to be a working mother and figure out motherhood and taking care of other people’s children. She’s turned out well, and is a credit to herself and her family. For her the once-in-a-lifetime trip for most children is still special, and she appreciates these opportunities that she is given.

I’m smiling this morning, but smiling more quietly. I’m smiling mostly for a close friend whose eldest has been accepted and going to UC Berkeley. Many friendships that start at work are complicated, because the practice of medicine is complicated. My relationship with this friend is complicated. But my joy for this family and this child is so true, and I’m soaring with them that this particular child was able to do it – and overcome obstacle after obstacle thrown in her way and her family’s way. Life is unfair. We are all fighting for equity, but we are not there yet. But this is 100% a win for the world but more importantly, I’m thinking of just my friend and her pride and her mothering and her doctoring. I write too much for most to notice, but if you are reading this – know that you are one of the people I most admire in the world. And I am happy for you and your baby.

And I’m smiling today for my babies too. All my babies. My own children, the oldest who is asleep and will be driven to school for only another month or so before he gets his own car. I’m smiling for the little children in my practice, as my heart is wide open now – to play and to laugh and to smile with them in clinic. I’m smiling for the earth. And I’m smiling mostly for myself and another mommy doctor, because it’s really hard to raise kids when you are tasked with taking care of other people’s children. And somehow via different paths, we figured it out. Both of us. All of us.

Let’s figure out together how to take care of now the earth.