MY STORY

Let’s get one thing straight, I’m not native-born Minnesotan. Rather, I was born in Queens, one of the boroughs of New York City at 9am by C-section. The family constellation that would interweave my life for the next 35 years would be dad, Buddy or Maurice and his beautiful wife My mother, Doctor "Lydia" (Adler); my grandparents, "Anuka and Popuka," as they were called in Hungarian, and my Aunt and Uncle, Verna and "Happy," Doctor "Howard," as he was known.

My mother had escaped from Nazi-infested Prague, where she had attended medical school not unlike Julia, Dashielle Hamut’s primary character in the book Julia. She was a determined physician who got bounced out of Flower Fifth’s obstetrics and gynecology residency because of one of her legitimate pregnancies. She would hold her own with predominantly male medical colleagues handily earning their respect. “I am A PHYSICISIAN not a WOMAN physician,” she would say when she quit the American Women’s Medical Association. She would share a practice with her more flamboyant brother Howard. I meanwhile would escape to the anonymity of his six children and away from what I felt was often the more controlling atmosphere of my own home as an only child. It was up to her as well to stabilize our family after my father, a pharmacist working for a pharmaceutical company was stricken with bulbar polio and confined to an iron lung for two years. She commuted almost daily to see her husband thirty long miles away in New York City. For Meanwhile for me, there were nannies, some good and some bad.

I would discover how to excel once I got off on my own to Peddie, a New Jersey boarding school. I would attend Dartmouth, majoring in Classics. I attended New Jersey College of Medicine and Dentistry followed by two years each at Johns Hopkins--Baltimore City Hospital and then Hennepin County Medical Center (HCMC) completing my residency in internal medicine. It was the nights off that were so exhausting. I was a player.

I spent eleven years in the inner city specializing in "diseases of the poor." I married. I had three beautiful loving daughters and I did my best to watch over my mother after my dad passed on of lung cancer in 1982 at 65. Lydia ultimately elected to succumb to her renal failure after a successful triple bypass WHILE on dialysis when she discovered she had metastatic breast cancer. I probably became depressed with her death, quit medical practice, and took to writing for any magazine or publisher that would publish me. I cranked out The Vikings Change The Play Against Alcohol and Other Dangerous Drugs, contributed to Being a Father (with Patch Adams), and Dr D’s Handbook for Men Over Forty.

I delighted cross country ski racing in my forties and was also elected a Fellow in The College of Sports Medicine. I also got some notoriety appointed by Minnesota Governor Perpich to a commission investigating the safety of fluoride. I was one of three experts who fluoridated the state of Minnesota. Dentists here love me. Plenty in some small towns up north hate us for messing with their "precious bodily fluids," to quote Doctor Strangelove.

There was the downside as well. Until 1982, I pretty consistently smoked marijuana while for decades, I suffered from episodes of depression in the Fall and Spring. After too many run ins with the Board of Medical Practice for "behavioral issues," I would first be censured and supervised but ultimately, on the second or third time around, choose to voluntarily surrender my medical license. By that time, it was all too clear that I had bipolar II disorder with some cognitive/executive dysfunction. Later, with bankcruptcy, divorce, and loss of my medical license, I had a short relapse with marijuana, and voluntarily entered chemical dependency treatment at Fairview University of Minnesota Hospital. I attended Metropolitan State University during my two year hiatus from medicine, tried practicing counseling for a year, and then threw in the towel. It just wasn’t my cup of tea. I have a part time job at Sam's Club as an associate and enjoy the responsibility and friendships there.

I am the proud father of three beautiful women, 20, 23, and 28. Although none have as yet chosen college, they are artistically inclined and continue to demonstrate that they love me. My first wife, a flutist –turned jazz vocalist, left me for her musical partner. She had had enough of my mercurial mood swings. I am remarried to Jep, a Kenyan. Her two sons, Jackson and Japheth 19 and 21, live with us. Japheth attends a local junior college where he is an honors student. Her two daughters, 23 and 25, attend universities in the Dallas area in nursing and pre-med, respectively

I anticipate getting out on the "circuit" speaking with my recent co-speaker, family therapist and counselor, Tim Kuss about bipolar disorder and co-occurring addiction. We are in the embryonic stages of embarking on a book project, Bipolar Visions—the Ravages of Bipolar Disorders.

I am not convinced there is that much power in the observation the psychiatrist evaluating me for social security disability had: "You really have had a hard life haven’t you?” he suggested sympathetically. It’s the cards I was dealt. I am not about to feel sorry for myself. I am interested with this blog, speaking, and writing a book, to reach more people challenged with this dual disorder.

I’ve married twice, practiced medicine for thirty years, tried my hand at counseling, fathered three beautiful daughters, and even fluoridated Minnesota. Uncle "Happy" always said to leave a party at the peak rather when everybody is crying into their drinks. Maybe I left medicine a tad early. However, I believe my life is filled with growth. I am active in the New Warriors also called The Mankind Project, a Robert Bly-inspired mens’ movement. Hopefully, I am developing more sensitivity toward my wife's sons I live with. Jean, 23, visits for vacations and is an added gift to me. We gladly squeeze her into our lives for Christmas.

My life continues to remain fulfilling. There have been ups and downs yet, especially recently, I have had more time to explore new horizons and possibilities. I walk on the shoulders of two sets of grandparents as well as Lydia and Buddy and, to a significant extent, because of his love of life and huge presence in my life, "Happy," another role model as a physician, father, and man. I endeavor to pass such legacies on to both my biological and step children. I struggle not to repeat what Gibbons warns: the mistakes of history. In this case, I try to balance an ongoing disorder, honor and treat my new wife respectfully, and serve as an adult presence for her young men and daughter.

Just as, Ernest Hemingway suggested, I continue try, to the best of ability, to live life as “A Moveable Feast.”