On the ground floor of a major medical center, I was in the bathroom, chanting out loud to myself. Zhonggg… zhonggg…. These sounds were part of my longstanding qigong practice, but at the moment, I was using them to steady my dizziness. The achiness in my chest wasn’t too bad today; neither was the soreness in my muscles. Linggg… linggg….
As my equilibrium steadied, I looked in the mirror, stood a little taller, and practiced a professional smile. Now I just felt nervous. In fifteen minutes, I would be the guest speaker at Grand Rounds, a conference for doctors across all specialties. The subject of my talk: a new paradigm of medicine.
The auditorium was an icebox, and the chill compounded my nervousness. The lights were dimmed, and doctors lined the lunch buffet in the back. Someone offered me a plate of lasagna, but I declined. Instead, I took a few bites of a honey nut bar and walked toward the podium.
The organizer greeted me, and a tech hooked me up with a headset. I rubbed my hands to warm myself. As the doctors seated themselves, I scanned the room. A wall of eyes glared at me like animals in the wild, ready to pounce if I made any false moves—if any of my points were too “alternative.” Then I came across a pair of familiar sea-blue eyes in the front row. My husband, David, had come for moral support. I smiled, took a deep breath, and gave my opening remarks.
“Years ago, I practiced at a hospital like this one. Now, I practice in a very different way. How did I get from there to here? As with most changes in medicine, it began with a patient.”
I clicked on the first slide.
“The patient was a thirty-four-year-old female, three months post- partum, who complained of heart palpitations. ‘An innocent flutter,’ she called it. But the innocence faded when she developed insomnia and rapid weight loss. Her moods became labile, and she grew intolerant of heat. Past medical history—unremarkable. Family history—unremarkable. Social history—no tobacco, alcohol, or drugs.” The next slide summarized the patient’s labs and imaging studies. “This was a textbook case of postpartum thyroiditis.”
The eyes in the audience continued to track me.
“The story didn’t end there,” I said. “The patient went through a typical course of thyroiditis, but returned a year later, complaining of persistent symptoms. I checked her thyroid numbers, which were normal. I ran some additional labs, which were also normal. She complained that her symptoms were so erratic they frightened her, and at some point, the exhaustion and dizziness kept her housebound. I ran some more tests, which were normal—so I reassured her that she was fine. Numbers don’t lie.”
My next slide had but one question:
If the tests are normal, does a disease exist?
With that as my backdrop, I stepped away from the podium. “I’d like to see a show of hands. Who here might have run some more tests?”
No response.
“Who might think she was depressed?”
Some rumblings of recognition.
“I screened her for depression, but her test was unremarkable. At this point, who here might refer her to a psychiatrist anyway?”
I nodded and raised my hand. Some hands in the audience went up, too.
“She continued to challenge what I believed to be true, even though it was based on expert guidelines and years of clinical experience. So who here thinks it should have been time to pass her on to another doctor?”
The rumblings increased. I felt like I was standing at a pulpit, my congregation responding with amens.
“There was just one problem.”
The room quieted.
“This patient was me.”
***
More than a decade has passed, and I can still feel the ominous flutter. It feels even clearer now than the day it started, because at the time, I had no idea what it meant. The quality was deceptively gentle, like a baby chick ruffling its feathers beneath my breastbone. But in the coming years, this ruffle would escalate into a storm of unimaginable symptoms—dizziness, exhaustion, and profound weakness—making me my own most difficult patient.
This difficult patient would break me down, then break me open to new ways of understanding health and disease. She would reveal to me just how layered and dynamic the human body was.
The journey toward optimal health isn’t a simple one. It’s a mystery embedded in the personal ecosystem of mind, body, and spirit.
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