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.