Several years ago, my friend Elizabeth Burke and I rowed twice a week through the Seattle winter. We ventured out without fail as dawn was breaking - rowing two single shells or a double. We'd row from the Fremont Bridge to the Chittenden Locks and back, or maybe across Lake Union and on to Lake Washington. Sometimes we'd come back to our home at the Lake Washington Rowing Club and wipe the ice off our boats. But we always came back with an irrefutable sense of moral superiority! We'd done it again!

Rowing - particularly Rowing Through the Winter - provides a richness of metaphors...instructive in my life as a Family Physician and the Home Dialysis CarePartner for my profoundly ill husband, Steve Williams. Now that Steve is gone, rowing reminds me of consistency and focus - so critical during grieving. Rowing requires balance, as does my life.

Row with me this winter. Linda Gromko, MD

Thursday, June 28, 2012

Let Me Go When the Banter Stops; Rowing Through the Winter Swansong

Let Me Go When the Banter Stops: A Doctor's Fight for the Love of Her Life - my new book regarding my husband's struggle with end stage kidney failure - was released last month!

Honest, blunt, and written in real time, this book is admittedly a tear-jerker. We know the ending; Steve died. But the process was a roller coaster, and offers useful perspectives to anyone dealing with chronic illness, relationships, stepchildren, crises, the medical system in general - and medical education in specific.


Let Me Go When the Banter Stops is available on Amazon.com,
in paperback and on Kindle.


Rowing colleagues will resonate with the frequent references to rowing and Lake Washington Rowing Club - my hold onto the semblence of sanity I was able to maintain during Steve's illness.

Do you have a group that needs a speaker?

As a zealot for the prevention of metabolic syndrome, diabetes, hypertension, obesity, and most especially lifestyle-related kidney disease, I am looking for opportunities to speak. Invitations to speak for breakfast meetings, keynote addresses, lectures, and bookclub presentations are all welcomed. I am especially interested in speaking to medical/nursing personnel, and health care professionals in training. Let me know what you need.


So, this little blog, Rowing Through the Winter, will end; rowing and other new projects will continue. Thank you for your interest.


Take care,
Linda Gromko, MD
www.LindaGromkoMD.com
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)