It’s 5:51am and I’m still alive and kicking! The world is kind of messed up right now. Greta Thunberg is on a boat that has been intercepted by Israel, as they’ve tried to reach Gaza/Palestine. The National Guard has been deployed to LA. I try not to watch the news too much and concentrate on doing what I’m supposed to do, but even after working the late shift – it was disheartening. All of it.
I’m not going anywhere. I’m not sure why folks are asking if we are moving to Oregon, but that is our climate bunker. We are here and advocating and part of this community. Oregon was a good investment and at some point it might make sense to migrate there, but for now – the problems in LA and the problems with our climate are our problems. I briefly mentioned to Mr. Plastic Picker around South Korea, and whether that is an option if things become unsafe. But I rethought, and honestly – I am not one of those. I’m not abandoning the only area that we know and call home. There is no where to run from climate change nor civil unrest. If we don’t stay strong, than who will? It’s crazy talk and it shows how confused the bad actors are trying to make us.
But do not be confused!!! I am not confused. I saw my patients yesterday and for the most part closed most of my charts. I have stuff to do and children still to parent. I am not being incapacitated by the chaos. If I’ve irritated by it, than there are others. I hope everyone votes at midterm elections, and that is what our family is concentrating on.
But there are more mundane things to worry about. I need to write two letters of recommendations. I need to respond to a very important email. Actually I need to respond to several emails. And I need to write an article about the Tijuana Sewage Crisis and give several talks at Harvard Medical School regarding the crisis. So this is what I will do.
Plus it’s our daughter’s last day of junior year and I want to pick her up at 3pm and have a fun SIDE QUEST! I am excited about the side quest! Just some thoughts as the national guard and marines are being deployed to LA. It’s really messed up all of it. We should have more native flowers around, and are we really deporting Mexicans and our citizens. Wasn’t all this part of the world formerly Mexico and before that it really belongs to the Kumeyaay. Maybe we should just give it all back to them. I think they’d do a better job than the current national government.
It was exactly three years ago that I decided to leave middle management and return to full time clinical work, ostensible to take over the Public Health Advisory Council Chair of Climate Actions Campaign. But it was also to choose to do things that brought me joy.
I don’t think I could have predicted how life would end up. I’m home upstairs and it’s 7:41am. Mr. Plastic Picker is at work, still on the path to chief of his department despite my best efforts to stop him from going that route. I’d rather he be chief of his own health, and just do clinical work. But he is who he is, and he still reaching for the titles. My parents-in-law are still in relatively good health, despite some minor recent setbacks. They are in their 80s, and not as vigorous as they used to be. But we life each day together. And my sisters-in-law, two of them, are here from New York and the house is full with their back and forth with their parents. At these times, I’m more of an observer than a main character – and I’m okay with that. They are here to see their parents.
But what I wanted to share today is how incredibly grateful I have been for these three years. For odd circumstances, I have been jotting down my climate thoughts and thoughts on my own daughter regularly for three years. And I have so many memories of her that are precious. Things she said. Little dramas about friends and schools. Snapshots of her creative process with her ceramics. I’m so incredibly grateful for those three years of observing her and noticing her, and being truly present for that time.
It was scary to leave. It’s always scary to take a path that is uncommon. But I never realized I would in return get to live this incredible three years.
Our daughter is finishing junior year, and she tells me she’s technically a senior now. She has a fancy digital camera and already I can see her capturing snippets of her life and her narrative voice is more powerful than mine. I think this next year I’m just going to live it with her and not document daily anymore. The reason for documenting is gone now, but the emails remain as this beautiful window into how I raised her.
She went to junior prom with her friends, and the three girls were very beautiful. They got to join their larger friend group later. And even during the climate and political chaos of the present, they get to still be teenagers in high school.
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.
It’s 6:09 am on Sunday. I don’t question sometimes good fortune. And someone asked to take my Sunday extra shift. I was supposed to work today and now I don’t have to work. I’m grateful to that particular pediatrician. So yesterday the little one who is almost 17 took her first SAT attempt, and today we are going to shop for junior prom dresses. Just me and her, or is it she and me? Sometimes I need to work on my grammar.
But it’s been quiet on the blog of late, and for that I apologize. I’ve been living in the real and other (Instagram) virtual world trying to work on climate and environmental health projects. It gets overwhelming at times, working with so many students. They are amazing for sure, but it can get overwhelming. But the truth is that I go to sleep at night, having tried as hard as I can, and it seems to work out in the morning after my mind has cleared and others have done what they are supposed to do. I have a presentation I need to work on for the National AAP Climate Advocate Program but it’s just a 10 minute talk and easy for me to put together. I’ll do it later. I just wanted to blog this morning.
I can’t believe she finished her SAT! (for now). We were talking, Mr. Plastic Picker and myself and the little one, what score would be the benchmark to say that she is done, versus retake it one more time for a better super score. My standards are lower, and Mr. Plastic Picker and our daughter have higher standards. But it was mostly fun the three of us to sit there and chat about it. We realize this is the fun stage in life, and I want to enjoy every single moment of it. I don’t want to know her score from yesterday, although she felt that she did well, because knowing the score means it’s two weeks from now. I don’t want to know what her final GPA will be for applications, because I am enjoying the uncertainty and the drama and the riding the highs and lows with her.
So today, I will sit and enjoy the uncertainty of it. Because it reminds me that she is still very much 16 and not yet 17, and she’s sleeping upstairs in her room – safe and very much our high school daughter still. I never thought it would be this wonderful having her. When she was born, I promised her a wonderful life. I never realized how much love she would give me in return. She notices me and fundamentally loves me. I have never felt as loved as I do by my daughter, and I have been lucky to have been loved and cherished by many in my family and my husband. It’s overwhelming sometimes.
But she is growing up! I’m not preventing her growth! She is focused on her junior prom dress and wants to talk colors and styles and cuts. I’ve never been particularly into those things, but being her mother – I’m all for it. So I’ll take her shopping and it we’ll enjoy the day together just the two of us. Grandmother is well on her way to recovery after her peripheral bypass surgery. Grandfather is happy and comfortable in our shared home, and the two of them had another granddaughter visit with her friends and say goodbye yesterday as she jetted off back to college. That granddaughter will be seeing her cousin (my son) up at Berkeley to connect and catch up as cousins. Mr. Plastic Picker will be working, because that is what he does and he chooses to do for now. And the girls in our family, we’ll go shopping.
She was absolutely beautiful yesterday getting ready for her exam with her hair in a bun, being fussed over in just the right amount in the morning. And she’s the main character in my narrative. And I think sharing our story has made others realize they have a main character is theirs as well, and the more love and care you pour forth into that child and in their generation and into saving the earth for them – you will be returned so much more than you ever imagined.
She’s selling cookies! We have the last 30 boxes to go to reach goal!
February 26, 2025
by Dr. Plastic Picker
I was thinking of calling this post “Kimbap, Exploded” but that will be the next post. Or the blogpost that never got written. It exploded in the microwave by the way, because of the circumstances that led to us have extra store prepared kimchi that we were worried about the edibility of the said kimbap.
But instead I want to write this morning’s short blogpost about something definitive I told my daughter last night. She has been having some anxiety dreams about college, and where to apply early. Some of it is that it’s crunch time with the ending of the trimester, SATs coming up, big decisions regarding club leadership positions, and the outside projects that she is working on. She has dreams too like any other child, and has been in the real grind – forgoing the normal teen social scene to study and do her work. It’s not really a sacrifice for her, because she actually likes studying and doesn’t do well with loud noises and over stimulation. She also has a very active imagination and happier in her clubs that deal with books than dancing. Every child is different and there is a place and journey for each of them, especially if you go to prep school. But in her world, she is stressed because all the juniors are worried about college and talking about college – and where to apply early next year.
I told her that until the day before those applications need to be submitted, she can change her mind. We have 8 months left until the day she decides and another year before the final decisions for schools comes around. It’s going to be a beautiful exhilarating time for her and for our family. We are so inordinately proud of her.
But the difference with her is that she’s the kid that wasn’t supposed to make it. She’s the preemie that beat the odds, and having been loved so dearly by her community and especially by her family – she has become the beautiful talented and interesting person that she is.
And I told her last night “Go for it. If you don’t dream now, when will you dream! If you really want to apply there early, don’t worry about mommy and daddy’s Harvard alumni status and that you are quadruple legacy. Go for the school you want. Mommy doesn’t want you to have any regrets. Harvard is just a place.” And with that I encouraged by almost 17 year old and gave her the freedom to consider applying to Yale early, which is her dream school. The baby that one high risk ob-gyns encouraged me to terminate. The baby that was born and intubated and whisked away at a little over 2 lbs to the NICU. The baby who was gavaged my breastmilk that I diligently pumped out 60 oz a day because I wanted her to have the best shot. The baby that had asthma, pneumonia, otitis media, emergent ear tubes, and mastoiditis. The child that I purposely did not let test out of spanish and math because I was worried about stressing her out, but now is one of the top students in her class and absolutely has the numbers and the resume.
Apply to Yale Early baby girl! Mommy and Daddy say go for it! Harvard is just a place and you are a miracle child. If you don’t dream, how can I? And we are a family of dreamers. You’ll land where you are meant to be. And our family, we keep on shooting for the stars.
I was going to 100% spill the beans! But I decided the averting climatic disaster and the love story within a love story goes on! So I DID NOT SPILL THE BEANS in “Confessions of a Pediatric Plastic Picker”! If you don’t know about the beans, then you probably don’t know me in real life because I’m constantly yapping about it. I honestly think everyone in clinic does not want to hear the beans anymore, but different ending possible scenarios still amuse me.
But instead, I am still going to give my talk at UC San Diego School of Medicine today with my good friend and collaborator Dr. Luis Castellanos. I am delivering my fourth talk at the medical school, and this yearly lecture really centers me and gives me direction for the year. Mostly I need to meet his medical students and interest them, and recruit them to help with H3SD San Diego’s Heat and Human Health Summit. I’m 50 slides into the talk and it’s way too long already. But I still have hours left to work on it. I’m having the hydrogen blending team call into from Orange County and UC Berkeley, and they will be presenting on their project.
It’s going to be a really long day in general today. My mother-in-law is recovering form major bypass surgery and I have a sick day to help with her care. I also have a lot of climate emailing to do and organizing. Our daughter is busy with her life, and was a bit overstrung last night. I hope the artists talk she is giving tonight at the Harvard Club of San Diego goes well? I’m not sure if that is the right decision, but it’s an opportunity and it’s important to take risks to grow. Failing is okay. Failing is an opportunity to grow. But it’s hard to explain that to a 16 year old girl.
Okay. I just wanted to type some stuff on the blog behind diving back to my power point to make it more coherent. I hope this short note finds everyone well.
It’s 5:48am and I’m sitting with my mother-in-law in the kitchen. I’ve been her daughter-in-law now over 20 years. She’s weak but feeling better. She was just discharged from the HMO hospital after having minor surgery and will have major surgery soon. She’s well over 80 and if you know me in real life, I’ve shared some of the details. But we are all together under one roof and for now we are safe. There are wildfires raging in Los Angeles, and many of us in the climate advocacy space are of the “I told you so” or at least I am. Not to the unfortunate victims of the fossil-fuel driven wildfires, but to the general world. Someone asked me at work “why do you think these fires happened” and I said “fossil fuels and climate change.” I said the same thing to the HMO social media person that I met yesterday and hugged. We filmed some segments that will air soon, hopefully to reach our patients and prepare them if the wildfires spread further south where we are.
But for now, we are together and safe. My daughter will be up soon in about an hour. I forgot she asked me to wake her earlier so she can shower this morning. She’s a junior in high school and too pretty for her own good, but studious and focused on her exams and getting ready to apply to college next year. My son is sleeping in his bed and in his room, that has a Cal flagged hanging proudly over the doorway. He’s headed back to Berkeley in a few days time, but that is a lifetime from now. I have this afternoon with him, and I’ll soak in those hours and bathe in his attention. I love him very much and shared him with his grandmother when he was little, and now I get him to myself for the afternoon.
Loving something fully is sharing. It took me so long to realize that. If you love someone fully and in a healthy way, they will come back to you. That is why I pour so much love into this work on protecting the climate for our children. Because it will come back. It will always come back.
And I found this picture from this long journey of mine. And I forgot on that night when I decided to love another family, that I was there too. I know it will come back to me. It’s already helped save so many lives. When I think about how many, it’s overwhelming. How can you not believe in fate when that happens? And that is true for so many of you that I’ve met on this journey. We have been trying to save current lives and future lives.
And in the end, I’m a doctor and a pediatrician. And that is fundamentally who I am.
I’m sitting here its 9:06am and last night I worked the late staggered shift, happily wandered over to to the office party and lived my dream of making an Instagram Reel to the current in kpop song apata by Rose and Bruno Mars. It was so much fun! Our son helped me edit the reel so that it was in sync with the song.
And this morning, I just forwarded an email to some climate friends in San Diego. It’s from a good college friend who I was technically her premedical advisor. We are friends from the Harvard Vietnamese Association. I had explained to my good friend how simple and impactful the heat summit idea was. That it was really to get folks together in a neutral place to discuss hyper-local projects that need to be done to address extreme heat and health, in particular wildfire risks. And she is talented and connected and she’s done it. She sent the email that likely took a while to mentally prepare and process, and it’s succinct and well composed. And then all I did was loop in 3 premedical students from UC Berkeley (including my son) who participated in our H3SD summit in San Diego, and they will help her.
It’s funny now when things are truly dire and something you love dearly is threatened, you run toward those you trust the most. That we are true friends and linked through our heritage, training and world view – is not surprising.
But it’s actually happening. Their team is on their way. I’ll be popping in during their meetings as well. But I’m grateful today to have a good friend like Dr. Quyen-Tuyen Nguyen. She has children too. My daughter has a yellow blanket that she dearly loves and that blanket, was gifted to our family almost 20 years ago by Dr. Quyen-Tuyen Nguyen. It’s funny how life works out.
It’s 5:46am and it’s been months since I’ve been in the routine that rewired my brain and life. Getting up early in the morning to blog in the quiet of the kitchen and then taking a walk or jog to the beach to pick up some plastic. But it’s the morning again, and I’m sleeping again through the night. Some of my sleep disruption was that I had been binge-watching Kdramas for the last 2 years. Some of it is that I have been doing so much climate work and clinical work. And some of it is a little bit of perimenopause. But today I feel good, and it’s dark and my mother-in-law just wandered into the kitchen. She is well and healthy, excepting some diabetes that requires more medicines and a toe that we are watching to make sure heals properly (she was in the emergency room over the weekend due to her toe).
I’m working today the staggered shift, so 1030-730. It’s a shift that I helped create years ago when I was in middle management but likely not many people in our department remember that. A lot of the women got together and had what looked like fun, but it’s hard to tell form social media the truth. But there were smiles and I genuinely think they likely did enjoy each other’s company. I didn’t go because I did not want to go. I don’t judge anymore, and my job is not to judge them and I think they don’t judge me as well. My dad used to tell me in the midst of my burnout, that it’s okay just to show up and do your job. When you aren’t the boss or the owner and a worker bee (as doctors are these days), it’s okay just to show up to do work. I didn’t hear that in the midst of being Assistant Boss, because there was so much indirect work nonsense that I was tasked to do. But now I realize that it’s 100% true. I just show up to do my actual work, and everything (the office parties, the committees that none of us get paid to do, the extra projects, the dishes in the lunchroom) else is really all volunteer. There is a shortage of pediatricians in the country now and they have problems finding and hiring qualified doctors, so it’s also supply and demand. So it’s okay to just show up and do your job job.
And this helped me end 2024 is a beautiful way. Having that mental load lifted, and being able to say no to certain things – allowed me to say yes to my family and to the community work that I actually care about. I worked most of the actual christmas holiday week including the entire holiday, and then had most of this last week off. And during this last break when we were just at home, our family squeezed in so much living and togetherness during that time.
My daughter and I stopped by a dear friend’s house, whose wife finished her 3rd round of chemotherapy. We dropped off some Dr. Plague plushies which for some reason made me so happy, and we happily gave them to their family and just chatted trying not to get too close (as we were a little bit sick) but we desperately wanted to be together with them. It was the actual Christmas Day and it was the most beautiful part of the holiday time. I’ll never forget the looks of love between my dear cardiologist friend and his wife. The jokes and banter about young adults in our family and real estate, and the mixed in jokes about climate people we know. The love and concern between my daughter and my friend’s wife (who is my friend as well and my sister’s friend) is so very real. My daughter feels like a daughter in that house, and our families know each other going back twenty years. Their sons we worry about too. And their dog is so adorably big and lovable and misbehaved.
We wandered to Clairemont more than we should have. We ate at Arely’s and had soupy quiche and matcha oat latte that is likely one of the best in San Diego. We saw HMO people and climate people, and we ran into a couple that are teachers to my children and also former patient family to me. Also another connection that is real and authentic that goes back over 15 years, and my daughter was chatting with her AP US history teacher and did remind me we had to go because she needed to finish an actual assignment for his class. We could have stayed and chatted for hours. In the same theatre about a few weeks prior, we saw one of her school friends that was home for college and the two girls rushed and hugged each other so very tight. I could appreciate the hug because my daughter tells me the stories of her life, and the girls had traveled with school a year ago to Argentina and seen so many amazing things. But as her mother sitting in what we consider our little neighborhood movie theatre, I will remember that rush of the girls running toward each other and how tight those hugs were. We were seeing Wicked and the movie was so very good.
Our son saw Wicked as well, or was it my sister and her children. But through the course of the two weeks, I called family more and chatted and stayed connected. One niece on one side had surgery. Another niece on another side is waiting to hear from graduate schools. Always at the center is everyone on both sides asking how my mother-in-law and father-in-law are doing, and they are actually doing very well albeit the toe that we are watching carefully.
We had more meals together than I can remember, and made new recipes at home together. The dinner last night at Stone Brewery was so absurdly delicious that I wonder if it was actually delicious or was it that we were just happy? We were the four of us at Liberty Station. My son and husband watching a movie at the Lot, and my daughter and I wandering around the area for 3 hours just walking and talking and finding small adventures (and we did find matcha). We bickered a bit and my son scared us with the plot line of the vampire movie the boys watched which the girls did not, but mostly we loved each other and were just together fundamentally.
We saw the Nutcracker earlier in the holiday break, and it was the first and only time we’ve seen in during their childhoods. It’s been something I’ve been wanting to do forever, and a patient handed me the card/advertisement. And we finally made it. We dressed up in our fancy clothes and tried to take fancy pictures, and Mr. Plastic Picker had low expectations for the actual production. But the four of us universally adored the ballet and amazed that we were able to make it. Did we have dinner afterwards? I think we did. We went to a fancy Italian restaurant in our own neighborhood, and the last time we had eaten there was the Christmas before last.
My son has started bike riding, and during these last two weeks we bought him his first bike and his first car. Both events were completely unplanned. We don’t buy things we don’t need these days, but he did want a bike and we are both doctors who work too much overtime and spend too little – so we were fancy and bought him his first bike at REI. And that night, we decided the four of us to make an adventure of it when we bought him his bike. He ordered the bike with his father, and my daughter and I wondered over to the other section and looked around at the absurdly expensive outdoor clothing we didn’t need. We remembered the last time we were at REI when she was into indoor climbing, and we talked a bit about a boy that we know that climbs sometimes and saw her once. But mostly we just wandered around together. And then we saw our boys, Mr. Plastic Picker and my son, at the front of the store and they were both so handsome and dear and we were again together. We decided to go to dinner and headed to the Convoy area. There we saw the sign for the first time together, and it looked smaller than I expected. We ate at a place called Steamy Piggy and both boys and girls disagreed about the quality of the food, but we agreed that the best part of the night was seeing three college boys that are high school friends of my son. We sat there as the boys caught up and dropped more F bombs than is appropriate in front of a pediatrician, but mostly I remember how happy the four 19-year-olds were to see each other.
San Diego is home for us. And this holiday we wandered around our home, from one district to another. I even made it to Convoy again and had a two hour coffee with an HMO friend who is leaving the HMO to start at UCSD. We gossiped more than we should have about work, and mostly I noticed her and know more about her life. We laughed so much and drew our lives together, and the parts of our community closer together.
That’s how I ended 2024, and began 2025. Life is truly beautiful. I’m grateful that I got to remember some of those moments with you on this blog.
