A XXXL Heart

Two articles well worth reading in the December 11, 2017 Sports Illustrated honor Houstonians J. J. Watt and Jose Altuve as Sportspersons of the Year.

For those who took an early trip to Mars on the NASA/Space X Red Dragon and missed the aftermath of the 1000-year Houston flood,  diminutive (5'6") Jose Altuve rocketed the Houston Astros to a World Series winning orbit.

According to Tom Verducci who wrote the story on Altuve, "There have been some 19,000 major league players. Only two of them 5'6" or shorter ever had 1,000 hits and 75 homers: Altuve and Hall of Famer Hack Wilson, who was born in 1900."

Four starters on the 2017 Little League Champions from Lufkin, Texas (Go! Panthers) are taller than Altuve.

In September 2006 the Astros invited Altuve to tryout. After the first day he wasn't asked back. He was too short. Too little. Too young. 

His father told the 5' 5" 140 pound, 16-year-old to return. Don't listen to them. Just play ball. Uninvited, Altuve returned birth certificate in hand and commenced to pound line drive after line drive.  He signed a free agent contract that evening.

After reaching the majors Altuve hit .276, .290 and .283 his first three years after which his father told him, "I think you can hit .320."

The next year Altuve hit .341, winning the first of three batting titles. The power of a father's belief. The power of a father's words.

Altuve said:

"A lot of people tell me now I'm their inspiration. They say, 'I don't play baseball,' and then they mention whatever--engineer, doctor, college student, high school student--but they're hurt because for some reason people feel shame about themselves or embarrassed because they are short or skinny or fat or whatever. That was something I never had in me. I was short, but I was O.K. with it. I didn't care. I still don't care."

The Worried Well and the Worried Unwell: Life Management or Medication

I just received an interesting question on medication vs. management skills for college students. When do students deserve medication for stress and when would students benefit from management skills training?

To answer that difficult question let's first look at what's normal. Many may disagree with my definition of normal human behavior, but here it is anyway. We are normal if we are able to:

• Love that includes:
• Love of self = wishing ourselves well, accepting ourselves despite our frailties, and developing our talents.
• Love of others = extending (but not overextending) ourselves for the other's emotional, intellectual, and physical growth.
• Love of God = a spiritual relationship with a supreme being or in my case, and the case of many others, a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
• Work = providing for ourselves in a way that benefits others.
• Recreate and Relax = enjoy ourselves in a way that brings no harm to ourself or others.

All of us have distractions, desires, disappointments, despairs, despondencies to some extent at sometime in our lives. (If we don't have a few of these characteristics at one time or another, we are in denial and most likely abnormal.) 

So to answer to the first part of the question is easy. In my view all of us would benefit from management skill coaching and most certainly all college students would benefit from intra-and interpersonal skill training. If I were running the world,  Life Management 101 would be a required course for every high school and college student. 

Two decades ago I wrote a little book---Leverage Your Time, Balance Your Life---that I hoped would help all of us live more useful lives. Since we can purchase the book on the internet for one cent it obviously didn't help as many as I would have hoped. 

Now to answer the difficult part of the question: What students deserve medication and what students don't? With a few exceptions, the prevalence of mental illness in college students is similar to the prevalence of mental illness in non-students. Those with schizophrenia and other psychoses, bipolar disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder, severe panic disorder with agoraphobia, and major depression benefit from medication and medical treatment. Medical treatment does not exclude these students from Life Management 101.   

Now let's get to two hazy areas: social anxiety and attention deficit disorder.

Attention Deficient Disorder seems to be on the rise. This diagnosis provides a huge dilemma for me. Who to treat and who not to treat? College students (and the rest of us) love Adderall for reasons all on this planet know. Adderall is a miracle drug for those with ADD. Unfortunately students can fake the symptoms of ADD very easily. In an ideal world those claiming ADD would have a battery of extensive psychological tests. Unfortunately these tests are extremely expensive or may be unavailable.  

Right or wrong this is a nutshell summary of what I do: After an extensive history and mental status examination, I administer (in person) a pen and paper test that contains the symptoms of ADD, bipolar illness, depression and the major physical illnesses. I then, if possible, talk with some significant other about the student's symptoms. I discuss in detail the side effects and abuses of Adderall and have the student sign that I have done so. If all seems appropriate, I give a low dose trail of Adderall and reassess a week later. The patient's report dictates options. To continue to receive Adderall the student must show improved grades. (There is much, much more to a treatment decision and followup than is written here.) 

Now to social anxiety, another college student illness on the rise. First and foremost these students benefit from Life Management 101. Some may require psychotherapy and in certain severe cases I may prescribe an SSRI and, on some extremely rare cases, a very low dose benzodiazepine. In my experience, the vast majority of social anxiety students require no medication.  

Thanks again, reader, for this extremely difficult question that merits a book to answer. 

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That Festive Holiday Season Aborted

This morning became the happiest day of the year when Vicki told me that we would be alone for Christmas.

Wende and family were going to his parents in Derry, Maine where they plan to watch It reruns all Christmas day. Brad and family plan a holiday with her parents in El Paso to enter the Fry-an-Egg-on-the Sidewalk-Christmas-Day contest. Plus all the cousins, aunts, and uncles are going elsewhere. As I was running around the house like Jimmy Valvano looking for someone to hug Vicki cried, "But we will miss all the fun."

"Yes," I replied, "You will miss five support hose in your Christmas stocking and I will miss a half-dozen brown and grey striped neckties:

• And we won't have five grandchildren jumping up and down on our bed at 4 o'clock in the morning yelling, "Has Santa Clause come yet." 
• Little Billy Ray won't be putting away his Lionel New York Central Steam Streamlined Train Set to play with the wrapping paper and box it came in. 
• Betty Jo and Mary Beth won't pulling the legs off Debbie the American Girl Doll to see who gets to change her outfit. 
• Uncle John Dale won't smash Uncle James Henry's Texas A&M coffee cup with his UT paper weight. 
• Aunt Sarah Sue won't drink all the spiked punch before breakfast. 
• We will miss the political arguments instigated by Cousin Tommy Joe wearing his red Make America Great Again baseball cap. 
• We'll miss the Catholics and Plymouth Brethren arguing over infant baptism. 
• We'll miss the dry turkey, soggy lettuce, molded cream cheese, spoiled potato salad, loose salt shaker top, limp celery, soda-less chocolate cake, runny pecan pie. 

"But, what are we going to do on Christmas day?" Vicki asked with Brazos River tears cascading down her face.

• We'll sleep late and get up around nine-thirty, see who wins the race to the toilet, and hop around freezing until the furnace comes on. 
• Then I will stare at the mirror for fifteen minutes trying to decide if I'm going to shave while you swab Oil of Olay on your neck. 
• We'll take our medicine for hypertension, atrial fib, heartburn, arthritis, diabetes, and wash down 30 vitamins to prevent Alzheimer's with 64-ounces of Metamucil-laced Gatorade. 
• For breakfast we'll have one slice of partially burned toast, decaf Coffee, and a big glass of prune juice while yelling at the newspaper for printing negative news. 
• After that we will watch reruns of The Price is Right, Family Feud, and Let's Make a Deal until having a lunch of cheese, fruit, crackers and V-8 juice. 
• Then we will have an exciting card game or two of Go Fish, take a four hour nap before a supper of fish sticks and broccoli. By then we will be so worn out we will go to bed just as the sunsets.

"That's the same thing we do every day," Vicki shouted in her tent meeting preacher's voice.

I don't know about you but I'm going to spice up my life by burning all those P. T. Barnum family letters we get in our Christmas cards. You know the ones that brag about:

• Jenny Lou becoming fluent in French before she was toilet trained
• Willie Jack almost pitching for the New York Yankees until he dislocated his shoulder while attempting to sign a 10 million dollar contract 
• Hank Boy catching a bass that was bigger than Shamu the Whale
• And the all the fun the Brown family of seven had visiting every Park Service Campground in their pop-up trailer.

"What am I going to do for fun,"Vicki pleaded like a wet puppy on a stormy night.

"Let's invite all our friends from assisted living and party like fools until seven o'clock."

 

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How to Prepare for the Ski Season

Those considering a ski trip over the holidays should follow these rules before making reservations.

• Visit your local butcher and pay him $10,000 to sit in the freezer.
• Drive around during rush hour while playing a tape of kids screaming. Make certain that the volume is at the highest level. 
• Bounce on a trampoline and jump onto the ground 10 times.
• Sit in an airport terminal for 14 hours.
• Walk across an ice rink 30 times in your ski boots carrying two pair of skis. Pretend you are looking for your car.
• For ski boot simulation, pit a pebble in your street shoes and tighten a clamp around your toes.
• Give Ex-Lax and Ipecac Syrup to all your children to simulate the third day of skiing.
• Pay a local vender $7.50 for a cold cup of hot chocolate.
• Buy a pair of gloves and immediately throw one away.
• Park your car on a steep slope and stick a nail in your left back tire.
• For those who like to snowboard tie your shoe laces together and have someone repeatedly shove you down the stairs. 
• Sit in an emergency room in your ski clothes for 9 hours.
• Put on as many clothes as you can, then take them off to go to the bathroom.
• Perform these simulations while breathing through a straw. 

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Yes, Virginia...A Followup

Yesterday I was doing an Goggle search on Marcel Proust when, somehow, I stumbled across the  Yes-Virginia-There-Is-A-Santa-Claus editorial that I subsequently posted.

I have always been interested in people who impact history in a major way and then disappear from popular view. Oskar Schindler comes to mind. Francis P. Church is another example. He wrote the response to Virginia that has become the most reprinted newspaper editorial of all time. His editorial has appeared in dozens of languages and has generated books, movies, television programs, posters, and stamps.

After graduating from Columbia University, Francis Church became a United States Civil War correspondent for the New York Times and had, for twenty years, worked as an editorial writer for the New York Sun when he got an assignment to write a response to Virginia O'Hanlon's query.

The editorial was an immediate success. Shortly after the editorial was published Church, age 58, married, had no children and died nine years later in 1906, age 67. The New York Sun republished his editorial every Christmas until the paper went out of business in 1949.

Virginia O'Hanlon grew up to get a Bachelor of Arts degree from Hunter College, a Master's from Columbia, and a doctorate in education from Fordham University before becoming a teacher and later a principle in the New York City school system. She married, had a daughter, Laura, and after 47 years as a educator retired. During her lifetime she received a steady stream of mail about her Santa Claus letter. She replied to all correspondents by sending a printed copy of the Church editorial. Virginia O'Hanlon Douglas died on May 13, 1971, age 81.

O'Hanlon didn't think she had done anything special. She told her grandson, James Temple, "All I did was ask the question. Mr. Church's editorial was so beautiful. It was Mr. Church who did something wonderful." 

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