PamRamsey.txt

-n -n -n . OK. Testing one, two. Interviewing Pam Ramsey. It is February the 19th, 1994. Approximately three, two forty Eastern Daylight Time. Doing this interview for Kentucky Historical Society. First, I'd like to ask you if I could and about your process. [inaudible] They're having fun. [inaudible] OK, well, I'll do it down here. [inaudible] OK. Tell me, what about your grandparents? Are they the first ones into the school? On my father's side, I guess. Supposedly when they originally moved up from Virginia and settled here in Gary to work at the coal mine. I don't know how many years ago, but of course several years ago. Your grandparents did? And what were their names? John and Bernice Vineyard. The I-N-E. And they came to you remember where they came from? Wrong note for Janine. And if it's not the members act of what you have any idea about the time frame was? The 20s, the 30s, the third of the century, how I would? I have no idea. My grandfather passed away before I was born, so I really don't know. And what is your, what were your other grandparents? They originally came from Alabama. And again with my grandfather I didn't know him or anything about him. You remember his name? His name was Marion Bland. B-L-A-N-D. And your grandmother's name was? It's Maj. No, they're all your grandparents passed away. Now your parents their names are? Albert and Betty Vineyard. They live in Bluefield, West Virginia now. But my father of course lived in Gary, or my family lived in Gary. My father worked in the coal mines. I guess from the age of 14. And at that time he had to lie about his age to move it up so that he could go into work. So he started working in coal mines for a year? In Gary. When he was 14 years old. Right. And you remember what year that was? Oh I have no idea. What year was it? He's 69. Okay, so let's say it was 70, that would be 9. So it would be 54. 44. 44. So he was? 50, 64. About 35 or 36 or something like that. That's when he started working in coal mines. Okay. And your father's name again is? It's Albert Vineyard. Okay. Betty Vineyard. Okay. And what was her? Made and named as Blaine. She's passed away too so my father is still. Your father is the only one. Right. Those two will be sure to be. And how many brothers and sisters? I have three sisters and one brother. But my father's brother and his wife passed away when I was a child. And they had five kids and my parents took custody of those five kids so they wouldn't be separated or have to be in a foster home. So they grew up with me as if we were brothers and sisters so there was like 10 of us. Well give me your brothers and sisters names and give me the other brothers. My sister is Abby Vineyard. She resides in Washington, D.C. I have a Patrice Norris who lives in Bluefield, West Virginia. Rita Vineyard who lives in Charleston, West Virginia. My brother's Albert Junior. And then the names of the other kids. The other kids were my cousins was Tony, William, John and then twin girls was Ruby and Deloise. So what year were you born? 1954, July 25th. You're a young person. I was born in 49. So what was it you grew up in the Coalfields and you grew up in Gary? I grew up in Gary. What was it like growing up in the late 50s and early 60s here in West Virginia in Gary? Growing up it was basically fun. Of course everyone who lived in our little co-town, everybody's father worked in the Coal Moms. So everybody worked together. Everybody got along really well. No one had as much more than anyone else. Of course you know there were a few people who were higher up. But everyone basically got along really well. Everybody was more or less on the same economic level. Right. And you were happy growing up in the Coalfield? Very happy. Good memories. Good memories, yes. Where did you go to elementary school? In fact, in Willco, the little co-town where we lived, the elementary school was there. I went to the fifth grade and in the sixth grade year they integrated the schools. And then we transferred to Gary Elementary, which is a mile away, and then to the high school there. So you graduated from? Gary High School. And what year did you graduate? In 1972. In 1972. Growing up in the Coalfields you said when did your father pass away? No, my father is still alive. Oh, excuse me. When did your mother pass away? My mother, ten years ago. Okay, so she was still alive when you grew up. So can I ask you, I guess, any any memories you got about growing up? What was it like dating in the Coalfields? You know, I did not date when I was in school. I was probably a sort of a different child. I studied a lot and I read because I wanted to do so much with my life. What did you want to do? What was your first big dream? My very first dream was to be a doctor. I always wanted to be a doctor. But I was very timid, a very shy person. I had no confidence with myself. What did that come to you? You know, I really don't know. I really don't know. But it wasn't until I had graduated from high school and started working that I got out of that move. Not sure. What kind of work did you do when you got out of high school? I went directly to college. I attended Concord College and then I got married at a very young age. How old were you when you got married? I was 18. 18. Concord College? I finished and graduated from there in 1976. And for one year I taught school. I thought this is not me. I can't do this. What was your dream? In English and math I had an education in K-12. That's an odd combination. Most English majors and math and most math majors just as wise as English. I was an English major myself. But I ain't any math. I enjoyed both and I couldn't decide which. When I was in high school I had an English teacher who really worked very well with me. She had a lot of faith in me and because of her made me become interested in English and I didn't pursue that curriculum. I can remember even now listening to her and she would always say "enunciate those words Pam" "enunciate them" And so you decided after teaching for a year that you didn't want to do that and you wanted to so you went back to become a physician? No, I don't know. In fact I went back to work in accounting so I didn't get my degree in accounting. In fact I was offered a job with U.S. Steel the co-financing here in the accounting department because the money was excellent and I was salaried and it was a very prestige position. And I was the first black to ever work in the main office building there. And given that opportunity I wasn't going to turn it down I wasn't going to turn it down. So I worked there for about eight years and because my husband my ex-husband now and I, we lived in Logan County and I drove every day and after I had my baby it was just too far and I decided well I'm just going to stay home with her and not work so I quit. It was in 1978. No, that's when my daughter was born. And I had a husband, okay. So I quit and stayed home for a year with her but still again my heart was always in Madison because when I attended Concord after I graduated from high school I worked evenings at the hospital in Princeton in the emergency room. And I actually started out as a ward clerk, a secretary in the emergency room. I knew nothing about Madison. I could not read the doctor's writing. I didn't understand terminology or anything but I learned quickly and loved it. So instead of going back into an accounting or teaching I went to Logan General Hospital and I applied for a job there because I had such a strong interest in medicine I wanted to learn all the aspects of you know about it. I started out in the emergency room. I worked in the outpatient registration and admission physical therapy pediatrics and then I eventually ended up in radiology where I became the assistant administrative administrative assistant of the radiology department there. And I did that for about 10 years before I even went back to PA school. And where did you go to PA school? To Aldis and Broadus in Philippi, West Virginia. It's in the northern part of the state. So you did that. Is it one of the group of colleges that used to be all black colleges? No, in fact Aldis and Broadus is a private school it's one of the private schools in West Virginia and it's not an all black school. In fact many blacks did not attend this school but now it's different. They have quite a few blacks enrolled there. Even when I attended there there wasn't many blacks. In fact there's no blacks that lived in the whole town up there. Well it's unusual, you know the idea I know that I met one physician assistant. How long did you have to go to school? I went four years. It's a four year program. Even after you had your not, if because of my other degrees I would have only had to go two years and that's to take the medical science classes. But I also wanted to get my degree in psychology so I have, you know, the double major with medical science but I also have You want to learn? Yeah I do. I really do. I love school. I'm the same kind of duck in the way. There's not much it, I don't know what can you say. I like to read and I'm curious about it. So am I. But so you went back to four more years and when did you graduate from Wendell Penn? I graduated in 1991. I think it must have been 88 no, 87 100. And so your husband wasn't supportive of you going back and doing this? Oh no, I was divorced at that time. And it really wasn't until I was divorced that I even went back to the PA school. My mother passed away at that time and it was on my birthday. And it was a week later that my ex-husband left and then my grandmother passed away all, you know, within a two-week period. And I really had a hard time. I started to withdraw. I didn't like myself. I didn't like people. It was very, at that time I didn't understand what depression was. But I was in deep depression and I finally admitted myself to the hospital and got help. You know, I was on these anti-depressants and all these things. But I still didn't like that person because it wasn't me the way that I was feeling. One morning I woke up and I had a long talk with the person in that mirror that I saw that I didn't like. And I flushed them all down the commode and said the day is the day that the worst of the world can just go on by itself because nothing and nobody's ever going to make me feel like that again. I went to my job at the hospital, turned in my resignation. At that time I had no idea what I was going to do or where I was going to go. But I knew I had to leave the town to get my life together. And then I was accepted into PA school right at the same time. So here I am. I've been through a lot of those same kinds of things myself. I quit. I'm a recovering addict after all I've been for about eight years. I quit. I don't remember how long ago. And then I came down to leukemia four years ago. And so it's pretty, it's a miracle that I'm even alive. And we've had a lot of family problems in the last year because I was the only one that got sober. Everybody else refused to be in a very dysfunctional family. And now my wife is in deep throes of depression. And I pretty much agree with the same decision that you did. I can't help all these people. I can't solve all their problems. All I can do this is do the best I can do for me. And this is apparently what I'm meant to do. So I guess I'll just keep doing it. And keep walking down the road with it. So how did you feel? So you recently divorced, you start back into and you have a daughter? I have two children. Two daughters. My oldest daughter's name is Nikki Ramsey. She's attending West Virginia State College now. She recently just transferred there from Fairmont State College. And then my youngest daughter, who is 15, Robin and she's home with me. She's in the 10th grade this year. I had a 10th grade. I started driving her car last week. This one's got two more minutes and I can't wait. I mean I can't wait. Well, you guys, I've actually decided I like the idea of having a young adult in the house better than I do having a kid that acts like an adult. Or a that wants to act like, you know. I understand what you mean. She has been awful. But we're doing better. I learned many things. I know, I know. It's been really, when I went back to PA's school, it was really difficult for me. Again, my ex-husband, there was no support from anyone. And of course I had my father, but I wish I had my mother. You know, and it's just, it was totally different. So I had to struggle and do Was he supportive of the idea that you were single or? My father, he's always been supportive. But I don't think my father really understood what happened. What I was really going through and what I wanted and what I wanted to do. Financially, you know, I guess in the back of his mind, he goes again on another one of these school ventures because I guess he thought I would be a professional student. But I guess in reality, he wasn't financially really able to help me because when my mom had passed away, it was very expensive. She lost her kidneys. She was on dialysis for about ten years and she had three open heart surgeries. It was a long, debilitating, expensive illness. And we dialized her at home. We had her own machine. So the supplies got to be expensive not to say that the utility bills were astronomical monthly with the electric and water bills because the machine was constantly going. Sucking up those amps. Yeah, so it was very difficult. Is that kind of one of the things that maybe spurred you going back to PA school? You thought, "Hey, this is something I want to do is help people." Again, like I said, I've always wanted to be a doctor even when I was a kid. But during the time that I was working in medical facilities, I learned a lot over the period of time. And a lot of the physicians, even some nurses they knew I was interested. So if I would ask them questions they would come here and let me show you this. Or let me teach you how to do this. And though it wasn't my job description, I was just always able to learn. There was a physician that worked at the hospital with me who was a PA for about ten years before he even went back to med school. And I was like, "I'm going to be a doctor if you want to." I just knew that coming. I could smell that. That would be my plan. If I wanted to be in medical school. That's what I told my kids where I teach at Rome State. They said, "Well, it takes forever to do this." I said, "Hey, go be a PA. And then if you decide to be a doctor, if you know they're going to take you to medical school, because you've been doing it for ten years." I do that. It just so happens that I have many doctors that are friends with me. Of course, I'm sure you have many now. They can give you good recommendations. I had a, and as my other back guy, one of my best friends, Joe Sintel, in Chattanooga, runs three walking clinics called Physicians Care. And he decided you wanted to do it. I'm serious. Joe's a good friend of mine. And he's always constantly looking for, I don't know if he's doing anything with PAs or not. I know that he was all of his doctors are doctors. I've not seen any PAs, but I don't know what his situation is right now. He's a great guy. He has critical arthritis and he started to heal from these walking clinics because he's just been administrative because at some point he's going to be in a wheelchair and he's like 35 years old. Yeah, that's awful. He's not really as insatiable. His wife was a doctor too, his ex-wife. But anyway, so you went back to the PAs school and what are you looking for? Do you need something? No. Oh, you're looking at me like you want something. [laughter] Okay. If you know, that's all right. So you went back to the PAs school and why did you apply to the PAs school as opposed to just applying to medical school because you already had a degree? That goes back to this particular Dr. Wolfe. He came into my office one day in the hospital because every day he used to say, "What are you doing here? Why are you doing this? You need to be in med school." You know, every day for three years, you know, he would say this to me. And then finally one day he came in and he says, "I have an idea. What are you doing this weekend? Come go with me." And he took me to Aldous and Broadus, the director of the program there, Dr. Bennett and George Tooney were his friends. And he introduced me to them, showed me the program and got me interested, got an application submitted and so I have to give Dr. Wolfe the credit because he -- Or the bar. So he sort of encouraged me. It's funny, you know, how some people come along and change their lives. Uh, Kentucky right, the Jim Lennon Millivitz in there. We were just kind of floundering along doing things and ever since I came in contact I've never even met him personally. I've done his talk kind of over the phone. He agreed to be on my board of directors from my writing center. He agreed to be in the book. He helped edit the stories. He read my fiction and got me put out in anthology. He's, you know, there are some people, apparently, who have the ability to make things happen. He's one of those people, Dr. Wolfe, apparently is one of those people. And, um, I think I would like to be one of those people. [laughter] You know, where you can put things together and say, "Oh, this needs to happen over here." But, so you've had a, uh, an interesting life and, uh, what do you -- you grew up in the cold fields. You see, uh, you've gone off in a different direction than a lot of other people. You did the coal mines. What -- what kind of work did your ex-hunter do? He taught school, so. In fact, um, special education. Um, I don't think there was a particular grade. He was just over there. Um, he also coached, and he still coaches and teaches. He's in Cleveland now. And I think he may be the athletic director at this time. Um, Shaw High School in East Cleveland is where he is. Uh, but it's in West Virginia. Huh? West Virginia? Cleveland. Oh, how? Yes, I'm sorry. Yeah, because we've got Gary West Virginia here. And Gary Indian. I'm sorry. So, uh, when -- when you guys got the force, you just left the state and moved up to Ohio. Okay. Um, I'm trying to -- you're a different kind of enemy in the sense that even though your father was mine, you're not -- um, I'm trying to pin you down. I'm having a hard time pinning you down. [laughter] Well, figuring out which way to go is it, you know. And where do you work now? I work inside River Clinic in Gary. Ah, with? Frankie Patton and Demita Locke. So you're like the person in charge of -- I'm the provider -- the medical provider here. Ah-ha! Yeah. [laughter] Now, I've actually figured out what your slot is. [laughter] I couldn't figure out what your -- What am I doing? Yeah, what are you -- what are you doing? And, uh, okay, so, uh, now, as I understand the way PAs work, you work under the supervision of a doctor, is that right? So -- so if anything comes into the clinic, then you pretty much deal with it, and then, what, call the doctor at the end of the day and say, "These are the things we've done," or -- No. What kind of contact do you have? Um, with, um -- If I have a problem patient that I feel that my supervising physician needs to know about, then I will discuss it with him. Um, I don't discuss every patient with him. I do my own treatment diagnosis. If you came to see me for a problem, I would not discuss you with him unless it was so -- Something you couldn't have. Right. But I don't think it's anything I can't handle. [laughter] I don't mean it to be cocky. I know. I understand. And, uh, so can you write prescriptions? Um, right now I can't because I don't have my prescriptive rights. I'm in the process of taking a class because I have to take a special class. And then, um, pass my exam and then issue a license from the Board of Medicine. And they know even your -- Write my own prescriptions. But I have no problems with that. Um, even here with me, my physicians are -- you know, they're pretty liberal because they know what I'm capable and not capable of doing. So if I need a prescription sign, I write, you know, and they have to sign my prescriptions because they have to close down my chart. But if they're not available, I just phone them in to the pharmacy. So. I see this -- I see this -- the idea of physicians' assistance as being, uh, a real help to the health care thing, you know, the health care crisis. Um, because I -- the one that I saw was in the emergency, one of the friends that I was talking about, Dr. Gether, he's in the emergency room, Dr. Crosswell. And I go sit in the regression team with a -- I believe it is. And, uh, there was a PA working there. And I noticed that what he was doing, like, what Fred would do is he would sit back and visit with me until a real, you know, emergency came in, like, where there was blood on the floor, you know, and Fred would go take care of the -- the -- the earaches, the runny noses, the feverers. The PA would take care of that and he would do it all and then he would come in and show Fred the chart. It's like, well, I had this and this was the stress. It's all right, you know, and just to let him know that I signed off on it. And I talked to the other soap, but apparently in lots of situations, and Tennessee may be different legally than West Virginia. I think each state has their own laws. That's the only thing you don't have independently. Even Kentucky is different than West Virginia. Yeah, I'm sure. And, uh, so you -- but depending on the state that you're in, the only thing that's different between you and a physician is how independently you work. Other than that, you do everything -- I understand that, however, this guy told me he was doing very well. Working these emergency rooms, it's a good paying job, too. And so he was -- I guess it keeps him from having to pay somebody -- Pay physicians. -- full time, yeah. And, um, well, I know Joe, he was working for the emergency room in Atlanta as a part-time job. And he was making $150 an hour for a 72-hour shift every other week, and he was bringing in $10,000 every other week. That was his part-time job. And he hated to give it up. I think they finally -- he had a contract dispute with him. But that's the thing. These guys work tremendously. They're ours. I don't understand that. Okay. In fact, I'm going to be doing some moonlighting with the hospital in Welch. On the same -- Getting in to the moon's part. On the same entity that you were just talking with the emergency room to walk in the walk-in or the urgent care or part of the emergency room so that it will free the physician for the real emergencies that come in there. But I enjoy emergency medicine. I've spent a lot of time in the emergency room. I've spent a lot of time in the emergency room. Okay. Let's see. In your role there at the -- It's the Dunn River -- The Health Clinic. Now, your official title would be at Physicians Assistant Tugger, Health Clinic in -- Gary. Gary, West Virginia. I want to be sure to get that thing. So I'll have it taken. What's your most -- what do you see your role as there in terms of healthcare provided? What's -- how do you see the job? What are you trying to do? What are you trying to accomplish? What are your goals there? McDowell County, number one, has a decline in healthcare providers here. We have a shortage of providers. And the reason I came back was for that purpose. I wanted to come home to help the people I'm needed here. In fact, I'm the only female provider. In the county? Yeah. We have Dr. Flores. She's -- she's an older MD doctor. But she's not seeing many patients anymore. We have a lot of young people, especially females, who do not feel comfortable with male for their annual paps and all these things. Some of them will go to Bluefield Press or whatever because there were no females here about the services for them. So in that way, I feel that I am helping or reaching a lot of the females who otherwise would not go in for their annual exams and mammographies and things of this future. So you feel like you're providing a very necessary -- you're meeting a very -- a very real need for the women, particularly in the community. And with everybody, the males. So my patient population varies. I have children, men, and women, both adults. Can I find the men to be -- how do they relate to you? They -- all my patients relate very well. They -- I can somehow get patients to do things that other doctors can't -- or, you know, can't get them to do or convince them that, hey, you're not doing what you need to do for your health. You're going to die, you know. And they end up doing, you know, what they need. It's losing weight. I had this one patient everybody gave up on. And I took him in. He weighed over 500 pounds. Now he's down to 250 doing great. And I love things like that. You know, it's a challenge to me. And don't ever tell me I can't do something because that's going to make me work that much harder. No, I just got my picture quoted. Don't ever tell me I can't do something because it's just making work that went wrong. You always look for a quote under a picture. Like that. Did you have some coffee? Oh, nothing. I'm going to get some more coffee. Right back. Hold. Back. You take care of your camera. Hi. Oh, there's a camera. I have your feet in the air. I'm back. You stay back. Stay back. Stay back. And get comfy. Okay. Let's see. The future. I want to do two things with you. What do you see as the future for McDowell County, West Virginia, whatever. What is the future? And your particular future. What are you looking for? Professionally, personally? What is the future for the region? Looking on the future of McDowell County, it looks bleak, you know, in my opinion. Of course, the employment situation is poor here. It's like everywhere else. The only operating major coal company is recently laying off, you know, quite a many miners, so therefore there are going to be more people on unemployment. Of course, we do probably have a very high rate of unemployment. A lot of the patients here have no insurance. You know, therefore they don't seek their the health care that they need. Our team pregnancy rates very high here. Sexually transmitted diseases are very prevalent here. How's the AIDS, are you starting to see do you do HIV testing? We do. Are you starting to see much positive for it? Because I do so much in this community. I do a lot of education public and within the schools. And I do sexual human human sexual behavior. Especially in the schools. So I keep them updating on the statistics. But the CDC had released with us as of March of this year. In McDowell County, we had 11, 12 known HIV cases and then 12 known AIDS cases. But of course for everyone that's reported, two is not. So you really don't know how many. We know there's at least 24 here in McDowell County, but could be more. And even in McDowell County, 24 people with AIDS is a lot. You don't know who these 24 people are. We're in Crossville County. We're in the middle of the city. I've got two practical nurses in my college one class and they said there's a whole range of hospital beds. But I think the thing that bothers me about HIV is I think I understand the civil rights and civil liberties issues here and all. But at the same time, it seems crazy to, you know, if you've got TV, everybody needs to know about it because they can get it. If you've got syphilis, they track everybody down and you take contact. That's true. And it doesn't make any sense to me to have this confidentiality with AIDS. Well, I think you should have confidentiality. But at the same time, I think we've carried it maybe to the, to the degree that it's just bizarre or counterproductive. Like I said, for instance, I think it's important that ambulance drivers need to know who the HIV cases are in the county. In case they've got blood squirt all over the ambulance, it's a no. But I guess that's why OSHA comes in place to give us all the the bylaws and cautionary things that we need to do. So you feel like that confidentiality needs to be maintained and... In a sense. I understand that isn't a small community, if ever, but see, I get 32 points of what. So I'm interested in, you know, I'm in a high risk group, although I've been well-screwed. You know, it bothers me to the fact not only ambulance drivers need to know, medical providers need to know. In Tennessee, it's against the law for nurses. They can't, even if they ask, they can't be told. That's right, you can't be told. And that's it doesn't make any sense. No, to me. I don't understand that. So, well, anyway, so who had I interrupted? It's that, you know, I ran across a patient doing cancer screening and was trying to do promotions to encourage people to come in. You know, you can offer free screenings and people look the other way, you know, they won't even come. And one particular person had applied for free, you know, for screening and I was screening them out. And I so happened to have run across a white blood count on this person. And I'm thinking, why is this white blood count so low in my mind? Nowhere in this chart ever documented that this man was HIV positive or had AIDS. But there was a particular medicine listed in the back of his chart that I knew was associated with AIDS. So a letter was also in the back where this man goes somewhere else out of state for treatment. But if you did not know this, you would not have known that particular person had been in our clinic and had been to lab and had lab and the physician who treated him didn't even know the man was HIV positive or had AIDS. So that's kind of scary, you know, it's real scary. But my big sticker is again with the teenagers and the kids because of teen pregnancies and the sexual transmitted diseases. These kids are sitting themselves up for, you know, for big trouble. It's, you know, because the highest group of people who are dying are males between the ages of of nineteen and forty. That's where they're all dying. And it's scary. So that's both the heterosexual and the homosexual population I guess, those age groups. Well now what do you see happening for you? Are you going to stay? Hopefully I want to do that. Stay for a while to do some things. Just recently, this year as a matter of fact, with the administrator of our clinic a lot of help and whatever it took for him to do it, we're now going into the schools and often sort of a school based clinic where there's another PA that works at our other clinic and right now we have a nurse practitioner who's going to be leaving in a couple months. So we actually go into the schools one day a week. We do behavior risk assessments. And for those children who are high risk for their behaviors we have consent from their parents to bring these kids back to our clinic, treat them or whatever needs to be done and get them back to the schools. So hopefully when that takes off that, you know, we'll be able to help a lot more people. You know, not only with medical problems and all this. So hopefully I hope that I can stay and make a difference and help a lot of people. And maybe you're going to go back to clinics. Maybe one day. Where would you go if you went? I have a strong liking for the osteopathic medicine or the orthopedic school. Why does there more than the osteopathic they have to do? Basically the only difference between a DO and an MD is the trainings that they have with the manipulative therapies. But basically everything is the same. What does an osteopath do? I mean, is that, is that, they're not an MD. They're DOs. But basically there's an osteopathic medicine. And do they, I mean, do they use? It's just the form of belief in medicine. You know, in the holistic medicine. Oh, so osteopath is holistic? No. The osteopathic board believes that the body will heal by itself. Whereas in conventional medicine we treat and then try to find the illness. Did I, I probably confused. The MD people, Board of Medicine or the medicine, in turn actually please you treat the symptoms. Whereas the osteopathic board. Let's figure out what the disease is. Right. You know, basically that's the concept of the schools. Excuse me. So the treatment ultimately is the same. Is everything is the same? It's just that the osteopath is more interested in what causes, why is there and how do I, how do I keep it from happening? And believe that the body can heal itself because of the manipulative therapy. I believe that. Is it a spiritual thing or I mean it's not, it's still the same belief in terms of of medicine. Traditional medicine, bacteria, disease causes. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The manipulative therapy part is very interesting because it's actually believed that different parts of your body if manipulated can help with a lot of ailments and things of this nature. Well, I know when I had chemotherapy one of the things that helped me a lot was the fact that I've been in AA for eight years and in it and I had learned how to stay alive an hour at a time, or a day at a time. And when I was in treatment for leukemia that was very important because there were times when I was just staying alive for five minutes at a time. But I remember when I read the studies that said that if you didn't have faith in the chemotherapy that it would help you. And I remember that when they brought the chemotherapy, I wasn't afraid of the chemotherapy because from being a drug addict, you know, they said, "Well, there's the chemotherapy." I said, "Well, yeah." "Yeah, another drug, let's go." And although it was physically tough it nearly killed me. I laid there for 47 days without any bone in there and I thought, "Oh man, they didn't die. Was there a second longest one? They had a woman that lasted for 54 days and then came back." Everybody else died to last a day off. So I believe in the body healing itself. And when I walked out there, I believed I was cured. I thought, "Oh, how did they care?" And I didn't know what I was saying. Which is one of the bad ones, but it's the best of the bad ones. The best, uh, most common form of adult leukemia. [laughter] [laughter] I said, "All right." So I felt good about that. But anyway, so you're now you've got one child left at home. She'll be home one every couple years. And then, well, I guess we're time for the something up there. What do you want to do? What do you want to say in terms of this is the one thing that I want to say, happy, glad, sad? What comment to kind of time your life all up, your work, your hopes, dreams, aspirations for years? The one thing is that I'm very glad that even though I had a lot of obstacles in my life that I was able to subcum them and to be able to at least be in medicine, because that has always been my dream. I love people, and now I have the opportunity to at least help. I feel that I have helped quite a bit of people here, and I can hope to continue to do it. And that it lasts for quite a long time. [Sounds of the door opening] [BLANK_AUDIO]