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I read this on February 20, when we were at the hotel sick and not going to Hollywood Studios.
It is a short read. She had a co-author. Her “Pro-Indian” stance is clear throughout, and at times I wondered how it must have made her mother (who, as a 15 year old Anglo, blond haired, blue eyed, married a Navajo man in college doing premed, who dropped out to work at a store to support them) feel. She notes that she learned later that it caused her some pain — her love of her mother is absolutely crystal clear throughout, but still. Tough! Particularly interesting to read this after reading Sherman Alexie’s memoir, and to think about high-achieving kids on the reservation who leave it and live in the Anglo world but who yearn for home. One of her younger sisters was white appearing enough to sort of pass; the other “spoke the language of basketball”. But Lori’s love of books is what inspired a lot of people, starting with her parents, to work really hard to launch her first to Dartmouth and then to medical school.
As a surgeon, she comes back to work in Gallup, where she meets a decade ish younger PA from Utah (very white!). They marry, and they go next back to Dartmouth, and then to other administrative posts, before (after the end of the book) returning West to Yakima, where they seem to be now.
The “discovery” of hanta has a chapter, which is fascinating, to read her contextualize this as something that medicine doctors knew about, told other people, who brought it back to the CDC. Ha! And they understood the full cycle: lots of rain, lots of piñon, lots of little mice eating the piñon, and transmission from mice to humans. One of the early victims of that round of hanta had recently been a patient of Lori’s (a lap-choly) and hearing of her death shortly thereafter, the medical staff freaked out wondering what had happened and if they had had a hand in it. But of course they had not.
Lori is at her best describing the many stages of her life, and the difficulties and rewards of each transition. It is great to read a POC articulate so clearly how hard it is, and how what others try to do to make it better has such mixed results. (OK, obviously, I wish it was not so awful, but powerful to read such a clear expression of what it is like, so that readers can better appreciate how amazing they are for struggling through that additional burden — and readers can also connect with that struggle, where it is relevant in their lives as well.)
One of her patients fairly early on in the book, who inspires her to make the hospital a better environment, has an unexpected severe stroke leading to brain damage during or shortly after the operation. When Lori gets the records from her previous operation (back surgery a decade before, elsewhere), a stroke at that time was also suspected. My personal experience (friend who had something like this happen when she was a toddler) suggests to me that the problem was not the anger expressed in the OR, but rather a genetic sensitivity to the anesthesia used, which we can now test for. The fact it happened both times this woman had surgery is the primary basis for this conclusion on my part.
Of course, a better healing environment in the hospital is a good thing all around!
This was a great book to read. It inspires me to read more books by women of color but especially indigenous women. Lori makes it clear that there are daunting cultural obstacles to indigenous women fully voicing their ideas, thoughts, feelings, beliefs, desires, etc. She also makes it clear that it was rewarding to her to overcome those cultural obstacles, and it was definitely rewarding for me to travel along with her as she told her story.
(I refer to her as Lori throughout, largely because the name change partway through the book/her story resulted in me predominantly thinking of her in first name terms. She is as much her own person as any person can possibly be.)
This was a book group selection, however, as a result of multiple weather/illness problems, we have not yet discussed this. Hopefully, we will in a couple weeks.
It is a short read. She had a co-author. Her “Pro-Indian” stance is clear throughout, and at times I wondered how it must have made her mother (who, as a 15 year old Anglo, blond haired, blue eyed, married a Navajo man in college doing premed, who dropped out to work at a store to support them) feel. She notes that she learned later that it caused her some pain — her love of her mother is absolutely crystal clear throughout, but still. Tough! Particularly interesting to read this after reading Sherman Alexie’s memoir, and to think about high-achieving kids on the reservation who leave it and live in the Anglo world but who yearn for home. One of her younger sisters was white appearing enough to sort of pass; the other “spoke the language of basketball”. But Lori’s love of books is what inspired a lot of people, starting with her parents, to work really hard to launch her first to Dartmouth and then to medical school.
As a surgeon, she comes back to work in Gallup, where she meets a decade ish younger PA from Utah (very white!). They marry, and they go next back to Dartmouth, and then to other administrative posts, before (after the end of the book) returning West to Yakima, where they seem to be now.
The “discovery” of hanta has a chapter, which is fascinating, to read her contextualize this as something that medicine doctors knew about, told other people, who brought it back to the CDC. Ha! And they understood the full cycle: lots of rain, lots of piñon, lots of little mice eating the piñon, and transmission from mice to humans. One of the early victims of that round of hanta had recently been a patient of Lori’s (a lap-choly) and hearing of her death shortly thereafter, the medical staff freaked out wondering what had happened and if they had had a hand in it. But of course they had not.
Lori is at her best describing the many stages of her life, and the difficulties and rewards of each transition. It is great to read a POC articulate so clearly how hard it is, and how what others try to do to make it better has such mixed results. (OK, obviously, I wish it was not so awful, but powerful to read such a clear expression of what it is like, so that readers can better appreciate how amazing they are for struggling through that additional burden — and readers can also connect with that struggle, where it is relevant in their lives as well.)
One of her patients fairly early on in the book, who inspires her to make the hospital a better environment, has an unexpected severe stroke leading to brain damage during or shortly after the operation. When Lori gets the records from her previous operation (back surgery a decade before, elsewhere), a stroke at that time was also suspected. My personal experience (friend who had something like this happen when she was a toddler) suggests to me that the problem was not the anger expressed in the OR, but rather a genetic sensitivity to the anesthesia used, which we can now test for. The fact it happened both times this woman had surgery is the primary basis for this conclusion on my part.
Of course, a better healing environment in the hospital is a good thing all around!
This was a great book to read. It inspires me to read more books by women of color but especially indigenous women. Lori makes it clear that there are daunting cultural obstacles to indigenous women fully voicing their ideas, thoughts, feelings, beliefs, desires, etc. She also makes it clear that it was rewarding to her to overcome those cultural obstacles, and it was definitely rewarding for me to travel along with her as she told her story.
(I refer to her as Lori throughout, largely because the name change partway through the book/her story resulted in me predominantly thinking of her in first name terms. She is as much her own person as any person can possibly be.)
This was a book group selection, however, as a result of multiple weather/illness problems, we have not yet discussed this. Hopefully, we will in a couple weeks.