If you passed him on the road, you would see him talking to himself, his arms pumping and hands gesticulating. His mind raced ahead of his feet. I imagined him with cartoon bubbles flying out behind his head with endless lists: the Krebs cycle, pharmaceuticals, microbes, syndromes, and pathology. The thoughts fit with running; they both went on and on. Who knows—perhaps imaginary professors sprinted alongside him, refueling him with more lists.
If you had asked him why he was running, he would have said because it calmed him and helped temper his impulsivity for the rest of the day. That was the 1970s, and researchers were just discovering the opioid neuropeptides now known as endorphins that eventually inspired the term “runner’s high.” He was living proof that it is an effective process. When he didn’t run, he was hard to live with. When he ran, he was easy to love.
By the end of medical school, he averaged thirty-five miles per week. When possible, I rode my mint-green Bianchi racing bike beside him. It was so light, with its sew-up racing tires, that I could sling it over my shoulder and walk when his run went off-road.
As the miles sped by, he kept solving problems and making plans. He decided what to specialize in and where to do a residency. My flirting eventually paid off. It was probably on one of these runs that he decided to marry me, the classmate with long brown hair.
O-dark-thirty. Military time became the norm as he started his radiation therapy residency at the Naval Regional Medical Center San Diego. Every exam room held a person with a cancer diagnosis; each hour-long appointment confronted life and death. Their faces betrayed fear, incomprehension, and Why me? thoughts. Pain sat in the room with them. Dave approached each person’s problem as though it was the most important one in the world, attacking their worries with the same intensity I’d seen in school.
Each treatment plan had to be exact. His obsessive-compulsive tendencies were a great attribute now. He prescribed high doses of radiation for their tumors; the margins of the radiation beam had to be meticulously tailored to treat only the abnormal tissues. Side effects are common and can be devastating. It was just the beginning of countless nights of sleep that would be interrupted with concerns about complications.
To keep things in perspective and to stay in shape, Dave started running more. By leaving the house at 4:30 a.m., he was able to run the twelve miles to work and be ready to start the day by 7:25 each morning. He rode his bike home, repeating the twenty-four-mile run-ride cycle every day.
In 1978, Dave and his brother, Mark, started running marathons. Ramping up their training to seventy miles per week, they did two or three marathons that year and were especially proud of the day they ran a 2:59 race in January, 1979.
It was in August of that year that we went on vacation with Dave’s family in Germany. Six of us were riding in a borrowed VW van that fateful afternoon, our destination Hitler’s getaway, the Eagle’s Nest, high up in the alpine town of Berchtesgaden, when the van stopped on the tracks and couldn’t be restarted. The train barreled toward us, and I fell out onto the tracks.
Dave knew there was not enough time, but he ran the twenty yards anyway. He ran the fastest run of his life. He ran knowing that either he would save me or we would die.
Dave still runs. It’s not always at O-dark-thirty these days. His shirts and shorts are now high-tech fabrics, and, while not a fashion statement, they’re a little more coordinated than they were so many years ago. The mustache is sprinkled with gray. He has an abnormal EKG, which, like his personality, normalizes after running.
In his compulsive fashion, he records his running mileage every day on a San Diego tide calendar. At the end of the year, he totals it up; every year, it’s between 1,700 and 1,800 miles. His times are now eight-to-nine-minute miles, and there are days when he needs to slow down or walk.
We’ve known each other for more than eighty thousand miles.
Forty years after the accident, he says, “Every day of my life, I think of what might have been if I had had just one more second.”
Every day I think, I still can’t believe he ran fast enough to save my life!
EPILOGUE:
A Son’s Perspective
I think I had a normal childhood. A typical day included dodging wheelchairs, dreading Mom’s vegetarian hamburgers, and being forced to practice the piano. Family vacations involved argument-filled road trips, weeklong canoeing trips into the middle of nowhere, and the key question of whether to bring along an extra pair of legs. Weekends featured San Diego Padres games, chores, and backyard butt-walk races. Most exciting was driving around empty parking lots, wearing helmets and elbow pads, squealing more loudly than the tires as Mom took a new car for a spin. Pretty close to normal for me was pretty far from normal for others.
Five years before I was born, my parents were in a train accident in Germany that left my mother a triple amputee, her left arm the only appendage remaining. She learned to walk with prosthetic legs, write with her left hand, drive a car with one arm, and make dinner from a wheelchair. Despite having to give up her favorite activities of swimming and biking, she found ways to get carried, rowed, and dragged through mountains, lakes, and fields of snow and never lost sight of her professional goals in medicine. She worked hard and became an award-winning physician. By the time she had me, she was living a new normal life.
While my mother’s adaptations occurred primarily in full view, my father’s actions were largely behind the scenes. At the time of the accident, Mom told Dad earnestly that if he wanted to walk away from the marriage, she would understand. Without hesitation, he informed her that he hadn’t married her for her arms and legs and that they’d find ways to get over hurdles. For more than thirty years, my dad has stood unwaveringly by his word and dedicated himself to enabling a disabled woman. This complex relationship seemed completely normal to me as a child and served as the basis for my lifelong education.
My dad has shown me that a person is more than her body parts, that everyone is a character worth appreciating, that more exists than what is on the surface. As a couple, my parents reveal the dedication and effort required in a genuine partnership. I have learned that what some call sacrifice is actually a combination of compassion, respect, and willingness—even eagerness—to change for someone else.
Acknowledgments
Donna and Jack, Mable and Albert: Dave and I will never be able to thank you enough for molding us, your children, into strong, resilient people. You taught us to never give up, work hard, and love each other unconditionally. Your commitment to each other was the example we followed. To our siblings—Mark, Albert, and Janice—and your families, thank you for supporting us and keeping our family intact.
Without the five talented and caring Austrian surgeons, this wouldn’t have been a very long story; it would have ended in the Unfallkrankenhaus, Salzburg’s trauma hospital. Thank you for being ready when the ambulance rolled up and for whisking me into the operating room, and thank you also to the nurses and staff who supported us in the days following the accident. Nora, Dave still calls you our “angel” nurse. You took charge on day one and stayed in our lives for the next thirty-five years. You are missed.
We’re so grateful for our family friends Adrian and Johnny Johnston, who ran the show and kept our family sane in that awful first year. Thank you for being our rock. And, Adrian, thank you for being a sounding board as I wrote this book and for verifying and remembering important or missing details.
Carla and Juli, my dear college roommates, and their husbands, Roger Cox and Barry Miller, were with us in spirit from the beginning. A thousand thank-yous for getting us back into the great outdoors and for being our travel companions. And to the Cox children, Leif and Heidi, thank you for all the ways you thought up over the years to push, pull, or carry me so our families could have fabulous wilderness adventures where we didn’t see other people for days at a time. Juli, you made this book-writing adventure a lot easier because you saved all our notes and letters from the very beginning. T
hank you for reading and editing most of the things I’ve written and for being the best friend ever.
Thank you to my attending orthopedic surgeon, John Webster, who pushed me gently every day to maximize my rehabilitation. And thank you, Donna Pavlick, for being my twenty-nine-year-old counterpart in showing the doctors who said I’d never be able to walk, or that if I did, I wouldn’t go very far, that they were wrong. You were the epitome of a physical therapist. Thank you to Hugh Lacey, who readily agreed to be my obstetrician and take on the complicated task of helping a triple amputee deliver a baby. Your presence on the day Tiffany was born was a gift.
Randy Mason, thank you for fabricating my first set of legs and helping Dave pull me upright for the first time in the hospital, less than two months after the accident.
Kevin Calvo, prosthetist par excellence, if I typed “thank you” a million times, it would not convey your importance in my life. Every morning when I drive my wheelchair up to my legs, I reunite the warm, breathing upper half of my body with the cold, inanimate lower half and, thanks to you, I become whole again. You and your staff at Bionics Orthotics & Prosthetics enabled me to be an independent and productive person.
The Navy also provided support and an extended family that helped us move forward and helped me become the doctor I’d always wanted to be. Fred Sanford and John Koval, Dave’s colleagues in radiation oncology, created a work environment that allowed Dave to keep up with his residency and spend time with me in physical therapy. Thank you both. Fred and his wife, Mary Jane, and John and his wife, Laura, devoted countless hours to helping us outside the hospital as well. I’ll also always be grateful for the diagnostic radiology residents who treated me as one of their own while we worried our way through oral boards preparation during my recovery in the naval hospital. Thank you for putting me in a wheelchair and taking me to noon conferences and film readout sessions in the department. Those times allowed me to envision myself as a radiologist and distracted me a little more each day from thinking about how I looked and what I couldn’t do. You helped me to see what I could do in the future if I just got off my butt and did the work.
Thank you to the radiology residents, faculty, and staff at the White Memorial Medical Center who worked with me as I figured out new ways to do things after returning to work. I felt your strong arms around me during the first transatlantic phone calls while we were in Salzburg, and when we returned home, you sent radiology textbooks, hoping I’d be inspired to study. I remember Drs. Sanders, Woesner, and Braun driving to San Diego with their wives to see us a few weeks after the accident. When Dave carried me into the living room, Dr. Sanders turned on a Kodak projector loaded with slides for a lecture on cardiac radiology, which he proceeded to give as if he had an audience of hundreds. You all rallied around me in your own ways to get me back to finish my residency and pass my radiology boards. My radiology career started with you.
The radiology department at the University of California, San Diego, probably deserves its own book. Thank you for taking me under your wing in an era when women were a rarity in radiology and many years before the Americans with Disabilities Act mandated that people with disabilities be offered equal opportunities in employment. John Byfield creatively got my fake feet in the door in 1981. Jack Forrest, Paul Friedman, and Dave Feigin were luminaries in pulmonary radiology, and I was honored to learn and work alongside them. I envied Jack’s ability to look at a chest film and decide instantly whether it was normal or abnormal—probably the hardest decision a radiologist makes. I will never forget Dr. Lasser saying repeatedly, “Call me Elliott.” It took me months to stop saying “Dr. Lasser.” I will always be in debt to John A. Amberg, who, as chief resident, urged the faculty to offer me the option of completing my residency at UCSD, and to his father, John R. Amberg, who exemplified the three a’s—availability, affability, and ability—and whom I tried to emulate. Bob Berk, as chairman, helped me find my niche. Barbara Gosink, thank you for putting my wheelchair in your car and driving me to radiology meetings in those first few years. Lee Talner, thanks for pushing me out to my car in a wheelchair at 5:30 p.m. on March 26, 1984, so I could get home before turning around and coming back to the hospital to deliver our son, Brian, at 9:15 that night. George Leopold, I suspect you are the only department chairman who ever put his arms around a colleague and carried her up the steps of a bus so she could attend a meeting of the University of California radiology chairs. Thank you. And to Shelley Van Buren, Vivian Cohen, Beverly Esposito, and Kathy Shepherd, thank you for being my secretaries and, therefore, my legs and arms. Without you, I’d have starved. You graciously brought me a cookie and coffee for lunch every day. There are hundreds of more names that belong on these pages. If you are reading this, please mentally add your name and a big thank you from me. I was blessed to work with all of you and in this department for thirty years.
Big thanks to Lee and Adele Parmley and Scott and Terrie Purdy, friends who weren’t afraid to show up when others were hesitant, friends who laughed and cried with us at the absurdity of things. You were patient and let me try things on my own yet were there when I needed help.
Although their last names are different than ours, these women are truly part of our family: Fermina Rincon, Francis Gonzalez, and Maria Trujillo. Thank you for keeping our house clean and organized so Dave and I could manage a family while working full-time. We couldn’t have done it without you. And while Tiffany and Brian were young, Phyllis, Dorrie Scheider, Michelle Fiveash, Marge Chellis, and Jackie Pohaku were the extra arm and legs that I needed to run after toddlers and keep them safe. Thank you.
Darrell Heath, please don’t ever die or go out of business. Thank you for taking over the MPS company from George and Butch in 1994 and turning it into the Ability Center. The adaptive devices you’ve installed and maintained on my cars have allowed me to work full-time, take my kids to school, watch them play water polo, and live like every other able-bodied mom.
Joye and Ernie Mason, you were not only the best-ever neighbors but also surrogate grandparents and great role models for Tiffany and Brian. Thank you.
I cannot finish this book without shout-outs to two water polo coaches: Doug Peabody, of San Diego Shores Water Polo Club and The Bishops School, Brian and Tiffany’s “other dad”; and Jamey Wright, the iconic women’s water polo coach at UC Davis. Thank you for instilling the dedication, teamwork, and confidence in our children that made them into strong, capable adults.
And finally, a big thank-you to my writing mentors and buddies. This all started after Tiffany emailed me the piece she created for an online writing class at UCLA. The story about her mom and dad was so gripping that I decided if she could do it, I could do it. That essay is now the prologue of this book. Likewise, Brian’s writing is so compelling that I saved the personal statement from his medical school application; it is the epilogue. Thank you to Shawna Kenney and Sharon Bray in the memoir-writing program at UCLA Extension. Attending the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley gave me the validation I needed to get serious about creating this memoir. Thank you, Judy Reeves and Marnie Freedman, for introducing me to the art of memoir writing through your evening classes at UCSD and continued mentoring through San Diego Writers Ink classes. Zoe Ghahremani, thank you for telling me that I must write a book about our life and then inviting me to join your writing group. I tried to ignore you, but you are one unignorable person. Before attending your group, I even found the address of your house and drove by, thinking that if it was inaccessible, I’d have an excuse not to come. Anne Valadez, Penelope James, Barbara Sack, Susan McBeth, Alice Lowe: thank you for helping bring emotion to my happy-go-lucky stories. Thanks also to Elizabeth Vaughn, Jeniffer Thompson, Kat Alexander, Katie McNeel, Tracy Jones, Anique Mautner, David Reed, Janice Alper, Connie Henry, Barb Huntington, Anne Janda, and Rose Lochmann. Marilyn Woods, somehow you always pulled one more description out of me that better animated my stories. Especially big thank yous to Julie Abbott League, Pat Eiseman, Juli Miller,
Alicia Amberg and my husband Dave Hodgens for reading the final version from beginning to end. The give-and-take of writing critiques was always productive and almost always fun.
Jeniffer Thompson and Kat Endries at Monkey C Media, thank you for dragging me kicking and screaming into the digital era with a beautiful web page.
To my literary agent, Lilly Ghahremani, thank you for believing this book could and would be published and for guiding me through the complexities of the publishing industry and encouraging me every step of the way. Cristen Iris, you saw this as a love story from the moment you read it. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for taking the stories I’d written and turning them into a book. And thank you to Brooke Warner, Samantha Strom, Lauren Wise, Annie Tucker, Kristin Andrews, and Julie Metz at She Writes Press, who took a manuscript and made the finished product come to life on the printed page.
About the Author
Linda K. Olson, MD, FACR, is a graduate of Loma Linda University School of Medicine 1976-A. She completed her diagnostic radiology residency at the White Memorial Medical Center in 1981 after which she joined the faculty in the Department of Radiology, University of California at San Diego. As Director of Breast Imaging at UCSD for twenty years, she provided inspiration to women with breast cancer and mentored countless medical students and residents. She is the recipient of multiple awards, including the Academic Senate Distinguished Teaching Award from UCSD in 1996, Marie Curie Award of the American Association of Women Radiologists 1991, Honored Alumna Loma Linda University School of Medicine 1994, San Diego County’s 2011 Physicians of Exceptional Excellence “Top Doctors” Award, Loma Linda University School of Medicine “Women in Courage” Award 2012, and UCSD Department of Radiology Lifetime Achievement Award 2012.
Now a Professor Emeritus of Radiology at UCSD, she is committed to empowering Parkinson’s patients and families to live life as fully as possible in spite of their disabilities. She has been a triple amputee since 1979 and was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2015. Olson and her husband, David Hodgens, MD, raised two children, Tiffany Hodgens and Brian Hodgens, and now live in San Diego with their black lab, Sally. This is her first book.
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