This piece was given to me yesterday by my patient, Irving, who is 85 years old and legally blind.
This is his daily prayer, which he got from one of his friends, which is a modified version of
a pentacostal evangel

Irving was born with a rare skin disease, called "fish skin disease or ichthyosis."
His case was written up in the journal of dermatology by University of Michigan doctors
when he was born. His skin is covered with fish scales like stuff particularly in the winter.
He never dreamed of dating a girl when he was young.

He would explain to any new friend he meets before he is asked and reassures him or her
he doesn't have a contagious skin disease.

My wife and I met him in 1966 when I was a first year resident when we moved into
the upstairs flat of his house where he and his mother were living.
They were very kind and friendly. His mother would take my wife to shopping and teach her
various American way of living.
He liked classical music and would take us to the symphony orchestra when they were having
rehearsal performances, which were, of course, free to the public.
My wife and I had our first child in their house and lived there for one year.
My wife and I then lost our contact for some twenty years until he found me through
his friend who was my patient.
He became my patient and has been in the last 15 years.

He's never been married. He's been lonely all by himself ever since his mother died.
Now he became blind. Yet he is always full of smiles worrying about others including me.
I bought him a book by Henri Nouwen dealing with aging and loneliness sometime ago.
He read it multiple times with a magnifying glass before his eyesight got worse.
Now his eye doctor injects the new biotech drug into his eyeball once a month
to stop the progression of his macular degeneration.
His diabetes and coronary heart disease have been under excellent control with my help.

The bottom line is the fact that as a physcian I constantly learn from my patient about life.

It's very nice and moving story, Sun-bae-nim.
Good heart, both of you have. I can feel it.
Thanks for sharing your heart-warming story.

Thank you, Dr. Bang, for your kind comment.
Your being an internist certainly would help you agree that we physicians always learn something
about life from every patient we try to help, partly because we intenrists involve ourselves
with every aspect of our suffering patients' lives. If we stay aloof from patients or keep distance
from getting involved, I don't think we can be a good healer.

I totally agree with you, Sun-bae-nim.

In the beginning of my career, I worked for a nursing home several blocks away
from my office. Twice a week, I visited there.

They had 300 residents with just a few men, rest were women.
Average age of the residents was 86 years old.

The reason I brought my part time job experience here is to say I was interested in
their life-story than their illness I had to take care of.
I knew everybody has stories to tell. I wanted to hear that. And they did tell me.

I am sorry to say that our life process is, in a sense, Building Up Stories to tell to someone.
I was their good listener. I learned a lot from them, instead of giving my helping hand.