Health

So, a little mini history on breastfeeding.  Well because it used to be the norm, way back like when your grandmother might have breastfed, or her mother may have breastfed, but then mothers were taught that formula was just as good as breast milk.  And why would you want to look like a cow to have a baby--I’m just giving you a shortened version--to have a baby sucking on you when you can go out and be yourself and have someone bottle feed the baby. It also came around during the wars when mothers had to leave the children with—they didn’t really have nannies back then, but you know the nanas, and they went to work in the factories. Who’s going to feed their babies? So, Enfamil, Nestle, all of those, the pediatricians started to fuel that this is just as good. They were never trained. One of my positions at MGH [Mass General Hospital] was teaching residents how to breastfeed because it wasn’t taught in nursing or medical school. It is now, they have a two-second course, but the younger physicians now are very aware of the importance and value of a mother’s milk. To me it is a miracle fluid. I used to tell mums, “You look at that formula and it’s the same, the same, the same. It comes from a cow.  The animals feed their babies and a mother feeds her baby cow’s milk? She should be feeding her milk that’s natural.  And they would ask mothers, “Do you want to breastfeed or do you want to bottle feed?” And the pediatricians would say, “Don’t breastfeed, it takes too much time. Oh my God, just bottle feed.” So, it took me some time, to be honest with you, it took me quite a bit of time to re-educate in a gentle way because you don’t want to embarrass anyone if that’s their belief that breast milk and formula are the same. To understand the value of a mother’s milk. My youngest granddaughter is being breastfed and I just love it. Oh, she's just growing and when you understand what it does to a newborn baby, right when it's born for God sakes, it protects the kid’s gut. And it enables that baby to be bonded with the mother because having the baby in the nursery is what we used to do. They took the baby right away put it in the nursery and the mother couldn’t see the baby. Now when the baby is born, it comes out of the vagina and they put it right on the mother’s chest, naked, which is where it should be. And the mother’s breath initiates the baby to breath, the mother’s body, the antibodies she produces in that breast milk specifically for that gestational age for the baby, because it changes.

The biggest thing about public health is [that] it’s complicated. It’s really a huge topic. It can be anything from West Nile Virus and mosquitos that are biting people to our homeless population. There's a lot of folks that have Hepatitis A so we’re trying to vaccinate them. To flu shots, to medical marijuana dispensaries, to doing food inspections, to preparing for emergencies. So it’s very broad and it’s so interesting and all of the people that I get to work with are so committed to making sure that our residents and our community, and really the region [itself], really has the best possible public health services provided to them and their families.

It was early ‘20s they had this nursing program at Georgetown University Hospital.   My father had moved to Washington D.C. and I lived with him and his fourth wife temporarily until I got my own apartment then on 2727 P Street in Georgetown.  Worked with the Georgetown University Hospital... got the heck out of Worcester.  They had this wonderful earn and learn plan where you could get your degree in nursing by going to Catholic University and then make sure your classes and your nursing assignments would blend together well.  And I got this grant at Catholic University. And the nursing arts people said, “We don’t accept colored students, you all have to go to Maryland.”  Catholic University would not accept black students in the 50s. And for me to go to Maryland and then work the job it was not possible. So my dreams were dashed.

I [got] my first service dog April 1st 2001, I now not only live a more independent life, but I help others to do that.   Do I move through life at a different pace?  Absolutely.  But I’m moving through life.  I’m going out shopping on my own.  I’m working part time which I would have had to give up.  I’m using tools that don’t prevent people from accessing me.   If I use a cane or a walker for support, people actually treat you like either you’re made of glass so they can’t come close to you or like you’re contagious.  The service dog helps to break down those barriers by allowing me to be seen as me, and not seen as those mechanical devices.  I do the things when I want to do them, not when somebody has time to help me, and service dogs for me personally are a critical tool.  And you know, when you asked earlier about political things, that’s probably an area that I am most likely to be called into taking personal political advocacy beyond the steps I’ve already taken.  Because that’s so important to my ability to be as independent and as successful as possible.

Strength, strength. I think women are by far incredibly strong powerful forces. We don’t always do a very good job at communicating or displaying that strength, but I wouldn’t have an appreciation of that strength if I hadn’t had the journey that I had, so for that I will forever be grateful.