Hey, thanks for jumping on a call with me. 

I'm excited. I don't know what I'm gonna talk about, but we're gonna find out you're gonna tell me. 

you know, this is just two friends catching up, really. Um, so I don't, do you have anything to drink? Are you comfortable?

is that, oh, is it water? Do you have a fortune cookie? 

Uh, a fortune cookie sticker that says you will have a better life if you just stay at home.

oh that's so good. 

And it's, uh, Kermit the frog. 

Oh, oh. Oh, I love it. Kermit the frog, a little banana. You've got good stickers. 

The banana says been better. 

Oh my God. These are fantastic. Where did you find these? 

Oh, just various internet places. Full of full of grace cat with a bag of chip on it. And let's see what else?

Nap. Time is my happy hour. . 

This is so good. 

I got all kinds of stuff. 

This is so good 

slowly, but surely 

you've always, you've always been full of these little bits of wisdom. So I love that you're putting it on a water bottle to passively share with the world,

throw it out there. That's right. I have one on another bottle that said home is where the wifi connects automatically.

That's really good. I think, I think we all wanna feel that level of comfort and security. 

That's right. 

Okay. So, um, not that I feel like you need to wax eloquent or anything, but like I said, in my first little pitch to you, this is kind of, uh, my, my goal is to connect people, but in talking about our gardens and to talk about how those kind of the lessons that we learned in, in succeeding or failing in a garden have kind of spilled over into our lives.

So, um, that's it, I think, uh, I think...uh, the last, the last one that I did, I was like nervous. And I was like, oh, I'm not really sure how I'm gonna introduce things. And I don't think, I, I don't think I even care. Um, so, so what, what I think what I'll probably do here is just say, 'Caitlin, it's really good to see you.

Um, would you mind telling our friends, um, what you do, where, where you are at in the world and, um, how you spend your waking hours? 

My waking hours are many. so I am Caitlin Collier. I'm a family doctor. Um, and I work in a family medicine residency program doing full spectrum family medicine, including OB and I am on a very slow-- knock on wood--

um, OB call day right now. So 

no baby's? 

I have time to do these things. No, baby's cooking right now. So. what do I do in my waking life? Besides that, I raise two children, who I have adopted from foster care, um, Jayden and Josiah, and they are wonderful. And most of the time, so most of my non-work time is spent with them.

I would say all of my non-work time is spent with them. 

So that's good. I think that's what a family is. Um, uh, I know we met ages ago when we were both in school. Um, you've been a doctor. You've been a doctor 10 years now. Um, not to date either of us, but , 

I finished med school in 2012. So yes, 10 years. 

That's great.

Uh, congratulations. I don't know. Did, was that, was that uncomfortable to put those numbers together?

no, it doesn't seem like it's been that long, but it has been that long. So it's been seven years out of residency. So that's seven years of real ,practicing doctor work. So now teaching the underlings. 

So, oh, now you're now you're training little ones.

Yeah. To be doctors too.

Yep. 

What's the best part about doctoring? 

Hmm. Hmm.

um, best part. Well, the best part about my job in particular is that I work with my friends, um, which has been a huge change for me because I've been very isolated in the jobs I've had before.

but I do enjoy, I mean, I just enjoy teaching. I didn't realize how much I enjoyed it until I was in my last job and had some students. And I was like, Hey, I realize that the days that I have students, I look forward to coming to work. And I mostly don't look forward to coming to work on the other days. So maybe I should do more of this.

Um, that's really interesting. 

Yeah. So now that I do more of that, I do look forward to going to work every day and it's, um, I haven't been able to say that for the previous five or six years. So, um, it, it doesn't just feel like a job. It's fun. 

"Doesn't feel like a job. It's fun." Um, is there something in particular about teaching others that is meaningful to you?

Is it just like helping them get a certain concept or 

I like that look on their face that they get when they get a, a, an idea or when I throw out some little mneonic that makes 'em go," oh," I like seeing, I, I, part of what I hope that I am imparting to the residents is not so much the medicine, although that's what I'm technically here for,

it's how to treat your patients. Um, more of the humanity aspect of it. I hope that that's the part that I'm passing on because I feel like that's the part that I excel at. And. So I hope that I'm giving them tidbits about, "Hey, let's not just think about what's going on with this person medically, but let's think about what's going on with them as a person and in their life."

Oh, that's a cattail. 

It is sorry.

there was just... all I could see was that tail. 

sorry, Jinora's gonna join us occasionally. I don't have any say in this, I'm I'm a prisoner in my own home. 

Okay. 

I understand, I am too. Um, what was I saying? 

So, so I you're saying that the most important part you part to the, a, this to you is not just teaching them the medical side, but teaching 'em the "human-ing" side.

Yeah. Um, you know, that's the technical term, "teaching them the human-ing side of things". Yeah. Um, of. Do you feel like that's been difficult, especially over the last two years where things have kind of gotten pulled away and you know, we've got telehealth or we've got, um, uh, people, frankly, having a hard time with people-ing, because we don't do it as much or as colloquially almost.

I don't know. I mean, I wasn't teaching pre- COVID. So the teaching part, I guess, is the same for me, but, um, I really felt like, even in my own practice, that I communicated and connected with people even better! Obviously not in the thick of the pandemic when we, when everything was shut down. But as things were starting to open back up, um, because so many people came in with problems related to not being able to "people," um, you know, they were like, "people stress me out now" or "being around people scare me" or, um, "I'm depressed because I've been so isolated for so long."

And I felt like I could connect to people even more after that. Um, and I'm hoping that the residents do too, uh, do feel that way, too. so I try to push some of the human, humanitarian or humanism kind of aspect of the job at them as much as I can.

Is there, I mean, I understand that, you know, we talk about doctors and I've personally have watched a ton of Grey's Anatomy, but, um, is there a particular piece of advice that you give your residents as you're like, talking about that, um, that human interaction and not just, I mean, cause that's something that I experienced even in the tech world is people wanna be connected to as people and not as a problem to solve.

So how, how do you guys kind of approach that? Is there a particular lesson that you try to start with or, um, Hmm. Am I asking you to condense, you know, several years of practice into a sentence? 

Yeah. It's um,

I guess the best thing I, I can

say is like recommending to the residents that they just get to know their patients, which we do better in family medicine than in other specialties anyway. But you know, if you have five extra minutes and you don't have another patient waiting, sit there and ask 'em what they do for, for fun or what they do in their free time or to pass the day.

And you learn a lot about people and become, are, are able to connect with them a lot better just in those few minutes. Um, and they may reveal to you that they have some hobby that they're passionate about, that you can then bring up next time. And the fact that you just remember that hobby just blows some people's minds.

Um, but it it's a comforting thing too, to, for people to know that they are known by someone who actually cares about them and wants to know more about them.

I think that's really good. I think that's really important cuz I think a lot of the things that we end up talking about in modern thought pieces is like, it all boils down to, we just wanna be known.

We want people to see us for who we are and we wanna be accepted or we wanna feel like we belong somewhere. Um, and especially when there's someone that we're entrusting with a body that we're responsible for and we didn't ask for it. so it's really nice to have someone who does take that little extra time to help me calm my anxiety, cuz my blood pressure's always through the roof when I go to the doctor's office and I'm fine talking to new people.

I mean, I've talked to a, a few doctors, I know a few doctors and like there's some, some noise with like the buying up of, of doctor's offices and all of that. And they're becoming this like corporatization of, um, of the healthcare system. And I know that that's probably something that's really hard, especially as a family medicine, doctor, someone who's who's toeing that line between...

uh, KPI performance metrics and mm-hmm human outcomes, um, to, to hold that tension. So, yeah. Um, uh, that's, that's definitely really interesting. And it's lovely to hear that someone like you, someone who cares about people a lot to be imbueing that sense of

care into others. 

I hope I am 

well, uh let's. I mean, the reason, the reason that I reached out to you is not just to hear about, um, your approach to medicine , but, um, it's funny. I, I know when I first started a garden, we had some conversations about your garden. 

Do you, do you currently have a garden? Um, what's kind of your approach to gardening. 

Yeah, I have one now. I, I didn't really grow up gardening. I, I did a garden with my grandmother when I was really little, but, um, that's really, I mean, we, we planted flowers and landscaping kind of things in the yard a lot when I was little, but we never did vegetable gardening.

Um, so that was a new adventure for me when I moved to South Carolina and I was a lot better at it when I was a resident than I am now, just because, strangely enough, even though I was working 80 hours a week, then, I had more time to tend to the garden than I do now. Um, so I have a very, very tiny garden now.

I used to have some, I had two eight by 10 raised beds at my old house that I did pretty well with. Um, but now I just have one long raised bed that I made that. I couldn't tell you the dimensions of, but, uh, the story of me making it is kind of fun because I, uh, saw a house down the road from me, from mine, that had been condemned and had been knocked down and it had all of these old bricks just piled up that were just sitting there.

And I kind of watched the pile for a couple of weeks and I was like, nobody is touching these bricks. I'm gonna go take some bricks and make me raised bed out of these brick.

Love it. 

So my, my friend who lives down the street and I went and took giant Rubbermaid boxes, and we took about five or six trips down to this abandoned house, um, in the, the dark of twilight.

And, um, took a whole bunch of bricks, tried to get the ones that were the, the nicest ones. And then I got myself, some mortar and looked on YouTube at how to lay bricks. And I, 

I love it. 

Laid a brick raised bed, and it's really nice. It's not level by any means. 

Don't need anything level. 

It holds the dirt in and it keeps the weeds out, which is what its purpose was.

And it only cost me the price of the mortar. So 

I love that. 

And a couple of back aches having to carry all these bricks um, cuz these are larger than standard bricks. I, I think it was the chimney that had been knocked down. But anyway, so I have that and um, this year I did really well. I planted all my seedlings, um, in the early, early spring and I had these really nice looking seedlings, ready to plant and um, Then there's that whole part of, once you plant the seedlings, you have to actually tend them and fertilize them and water them and do stuff to them to make 'em grow.

Right. And when you have two small children and a full time job, and you're single, that's kind of hard to do. 

It is, it is hard to do. 

So I ended up with, uh, a couple of non-producing pepper plants and, a, Humongous volunteer butternut squash. 

Really? Did you have butternut squash a previous season?

No, I've never grown butternut squash, but I had it in my compost.

Okay. 

So I it's growing from my compost pile. It's not even growing in my raised beds. It is taking over my backyard. It's humongus. I mean, the leaves are three times the size of my head and I have done literally nothing to it. 

That is so funny! 

I have not watered it one single solitary time. I have not been able to turn the compost because I can't even get to the pile now because this thing is so big and, um, I've already picked and cooked one of them and it was pretty good.

So I'm hoping that the rest that are on the vine are really good. . I've I've produced nothing that I wanted to, from my garden and gotten a whole lot of one thing that I didn't intend to. Which might be a metaphor for my life. 

I, you know, I think it's a very, it's a very astute metaphor. Volunteers are a very common thing that I, you know, that gardeners like, laugh about.

It's like, oh, well I just had these just show up. Or mm-hmm , you know, waste water treatment plants. They like have tomato plants that grow out there. Mm-hmm . Sometimes people use those seedlings and I don't recommend it, but, you know, it's like, it's really funny. Like there's, there's life, life finds a way.

Uh so, um, so nothing, nothing grew out of the garden itself, but we've got this beautiful butternut squash plant mm-hmm out of the compost. I love that. 

Yeah. I mean, yeah. And it really is probably a metaphor for my life because it's. All, all of my plans go to nothing and then something cool comes out of the trash.

you know, it's just kind of that, uh, our best laid plans "gang aft agley", um, I think is the, the Irish poem or Scottish poem goes, but, um, they often go awry because we don't, we don't.

We're not as in as much control, I think as we like to imagine that we are. 

Not at all, that was definitely my story with foster care in that I had planned to be a serial foster parent and had planned to not really take any children long term. I had, I had made this wonderful foster closet of clothes for, um, all ages up, well, ages birth through five, which is what I had decided to take for a while.

And I just said, I'm just gonna continually take children as I, as they need to be taken and I'll keep them for however long they need to be here and then they'll move on and had no... the thought of adoption was in the very back of my mind, but was definitely not something I was actively pursuing through foster care because I did not get licensed for adoption immediately.

Um, and then, lo and behold, the second child that I get through foster care ends up being the one that I adopt! So, um, and then I am not doing foster care anymore because two is enough. 

Um, two is plenty. Yeah. Yeah. 

And it's a messy but fun process. 

Mm-hmm 

um, is parenting something that. Is parenting something that you had previously planned on doing before you had done foster?

Have you always been one of those people who was like, okay, obviously going into medicine, you care about people mm-hmm you care about families and systems, but like, were, was it something that you were like, I wanna have a picket fence and two kids one day or, um, was it, was it just kind of something that as you met these children, like, what kind of I led you there? 

I always pictured myself having children, but never pursued it very much. And certainly being single, again, was not really something that I was just ready and willing to jump into, although to, in my mind, like, I wanted children more than I ever wanted a spouse. So.

So, so it was just something that as, as you were fostering, as you're kind of taking care of your community, it just made sense that these are the two little beings that you want to parent. 

Yeah. I mean, after Jayden, I had had for a year and he was calling me mama by week two. And so once somebody starts calling you mama, it doesn't matter if you wanted to be or not.

You're mama now! Then, and, and I realized a couple of months in, when I started referring to him, to, to my patients, as my son. And initially it was just for the, the ease of conversation to not have to say, well, my foster child that I have, um, that I was like, no, he really he's my son. Mm. 

Parenting, the two of them has been not easy at all. Yeah. By any stretch of the imagination and very frustrating at times and very difficult at times, but it's been really rewarding sometimes too.

So. 

Right. I, um, 

But that's parenting in a nutshell. 

That is parenting in a nutshell! Um, you know, I think, I think fostering has been really interesting. I've got, I've got a few friends that have fostered and fostered to adopt, um, and they may be on this show eventually. Um, but is there. Are there resources that like you would recommend and you don't have to rattle them off here.

We can put 'em up in the show notes, but, um, are there resources that you can recommend for? Because like I know that that was a hard decision for you. Like, I, I know you, and I know that like, um, you know, having to. I, I mean, without talking too much about fostering, I know that there's a lot of conversations about being in their family system often is the best often that reconciliation process is really important.

Right. But it's also very important to give them what they need so that you can avoid, uh, childhood ACEs, () adverse childhood experiences)

and other, other things that maybe the parents don't have the resources, because our systems aren't providing those resources for them. They don't have access to being able to provide a, you know, a, a secure system.

So if someone who's listening has any questions about fostering or maybe getting some resources on how to do that, where would you recommend they look? 

Um, anything that Dr. Karyn Purvis has written is solid gold as far as learning how to be a foster parent and how to parent these kids. And then there's another book out there called, um, um,

there's one called Parenting the Hurt Child, and one called Adopting the Hurt Child. And they both are really good. Um, even if you're not planning on adopting. um, just great resources that teach you what these kids have been through and how to respond to it. 

Um, it shocks me that you just mentioned childhood ACEs because I'm in medicine and it's something that everybody in my field should know, but I don't expect anybody else to know about.

Um, and most of the residents around here don't know about it. That's childhood trauma is something I'm trying to teach a lot of them about. Um, and so. Learning about the ACEs study is a big thing that you will learn about in foster care training. And, um, but the more you can understand how much these adverse events in childhood affect people, long term, the better you can relate to adults that, you know, um, and the better you can serve them, and minister to them.

And then the better you can treat these kids. And I have to constantly remind myself. Jayden, my oldest son, he's only four, but he's a big kid and he looks like he's six or seven. And I have to constantly remind myself. He is only four. He is only four. I can't make, I can't have this expectation of him because he is only four, but you may have a 10 year old who you would expect can do X, Y, and Z, but emotionally they're five.

And you have to constantly remind yourself of that, that yeah, they look 10, but this is a baby that I'm dealing with. And, um, so I, I don't have, those would be the specific resources I would say, but I guess just in general, learning about adverse childhood experiences. 

I think that there's a lot of conversations now about not just, not just why are you that way, but what happened to you and how can we resolve that? Mm-hmm so that you can do these other things that are expected of you at this development stage or, or whatever. You just didn't have, you didn't have the opportunity to learn those things.

And I think childhood ACEs , um, those are, those are things that like, if, if you look at the list, a lot of us experienced those, those things. A lot of us went through those things and just because we went through them doesn't mean that they're okay. Just because we turned out how we are.

It's, it's how we resolve that trauma in ourselves and we're able to move on. And if you don't resolve it, you're stuck in those patterns of, of, um, Anxiety or addiction or whatever that you may be naturally prone to, but that you could move on from. Right. So I, yeah, I've done a lot of reading about this through my own therapeutic work.

And then, um, uh, I've been working with a group called Resilient Middle Georgia. That kind of tries to not just talk about the ACEs, but what are the, what are the good things that you can do to counter act those things? Um, right. You know, for people who are raising children now, who experience these things, how can they break that cycle?

And they do that with. Making dinner together or reading a book together, or, you know, not just turning on the television and zoning out, but, but communing and being a family together, mm-hmm um, is 

I always have a book for that. Um, Parenting from the Inside Out mm. Is a good, um, resource for that, because it, it, it comes from the, from the perspective of your children.

in, in adoption kind of world "children from hard places" is what it calls them. Um, if you're dealing with these kind of kids, but it also comes at it from the perspective of, we all have had some sort of trauma in our lives. We've all got some kind of background that screwed us up some kind of way. Um, and here's how to get through your own stuff so that it doesn't trigger you when you come up with difficult behaviors in your children.

Um, and so that you can teach your children how to be resilient and, um, well balanced individuals. 

So yeah, cuz like avoiding these conversations, doesn't give them the tools to deal with them in the future. Right. You have to, yeah. You have to, you have to practice. We are the sum of what we practice, so right.

Um, So, so I love that you're planting little children right now. 

Um, growing children that is for sure eating me outta house and home. 

I, uh, I think the, I've got two questions specifically about gardens. Um, mm-hmm, that I ask and it's like, traditionally, what have you enjoyed growing the most? Um, and, and what, what have you enjoyed or not succeeded growing?

So do you have answers for those on what you've mm-hmm done the best with. 

Um, I. 

Not enjoyed growing peppers. I can't make them grow. I don't know why everybody else seems to have such ease with them. I cannot make them happen. Um, last year though. I forgot about a poblano plant that I had and it did wonderfully.

So, uh, 

all of my peppers thrive on neglect. Yeah. All of my peppers have thrived on neglect. I just forget they exist, and then they start producing. I have to like turn my back on them. 

Maybe that's what I need to do then, because I seem to be giving them way too much attention because they. I'll get these itty bitty little bell peppers that are like, what is that supposed to be?

Um, and then I always do well with squash and zucchini. I mean, I feel like you kind of, can't not do well. They're good starter plants, but, um, tomatoes, surprisingly, I don't like tomatoes. Mm-hmm. At all mm-hmm , but I grow them well. And , and, and so 

that's so funny. 

Um, I, I mean, I'll make sauces and salsa and things like that out of 'em in, instead of, I usually will just plant Romas or, um, cherry tomatoes or things like that instead of big ones, but I, for some reason, turn out a good tomato, even though I don't like to eat 'em.

I love it. I, um, if it makes you feel any better, you're just talking about how zucchini you've always done really well with it. I have failed every year, four or five years that I have had a garden of some form, I have failed every year... except this year.

Uh but like literally every other year. And I think, I think what it. as I over planted, like I put too much stuff in that way. 

Yeah. 

You gotta give 'em space. 

Mm-hmm, a lot of space, a lot more space than I thought. 

Um, and I think that, and you feel a little stingy with your ground or at least I do. And I'm like, I could have so much more planted here, but plant three zucchini plants and you end up with plenty of zucchini from 'em.

So if you give them enough effort, same, I mean, this, this humongous, um, Butternut squash that I have is one plant, but it is, I'm telling you it's, it's freaking huge. I , I didn't know. They could get that big. 

Does butternut squash vine? Or is it a bush? 

Yeah. Okay. It vines. 

So it's all, it's all over the place.

Love it 

everywhere. 

Love it. Um, so I've got two more questions. The, the, the second to last one is, um, uh, is there a lesson particular? And I think this kind of comes back to what we're talking about with the butternut squash. So if that's the lesson, that's fine. But is there a particular lesson other than the butternut squash that you've learned in gardening that you feel is spilled over into the rest of your life?

Oh, I guess. Anything you want to do well, you have to put in daily, um, effort into, which is a struggle. And so sometimes you wanna do one thing well, and you just don't have the time or space for it, and so it, it fails, which has been the case for my garden this year. I just don't... maybe in two or three years when the boys are big enough to help me water and weed and things like that, we'll get it going again and, and do better.

Um, but this year I, my daily thing is feeding children, so, um, if I want to do that well, then I need to just do that and probably not spread myself too thin. 

Yeah, I think that's, I think that's really interesting. I was talking to another friend recently and he was talking about moving from London to Cornwall specifically because he has a new little baby who's a year old and London is not good for a baby, but Cornwall is mm-hmm and it's so interesting.

How, um, having another little seedling in your life, uh, like we're just talking about the zucchini. You have to give it enough space. And sometimes that means the other things that matter to you become less important so that you can invest that time in that thing that's important. Mm-hmm so I, I definitely appreciate that.

And, and you do, like, you do grieve the ones that you miss and you grieve being able to plant other things in that space that you have to give extra space to the zucchini. You, you grieve not being able to go out on Friday night with a friend or, or whatever, um, with kids, but it, it has its own rewards too.

So in the end you get a watermelon. Or a zucchini 

yeah. Well, 

and I think it's really lovely to look at things as a season as well. 

Mm-hmm 

um, you know, just because we couldn't plant it this spring doesn't mean we can't plant it next spring. Right. Um, and also just because you didn't plant it doesn't mean that the compost isn't gonna turn it up anyway for you just later in the season.

so I know a lot of times we look at time as linear that, you know, okay. We have to get this thing started. So. In a year I can be here. And I, I think I might have said this already. Maybe I'll just say it every podcast, but we overestimate what we can do in 12 months and underestimate what can happen in five years. And, um, So we, we have a really messed up ability to judge time because we want results so quickly and we want it this season, um, that we don't allow the other things in our life to help kind of form it for us.

Mm-hmm . Um, but I, uh, I really appreciate that. Like sometimes you've gotta make space for what you, what you truly want. And, um, if there's something that you wanna be good at, you do have to invest that time and be ruthless about it. Mm-hmm um, so. I love that. Um, so my, my last question for you is, um, in your life as a whole, I know you're a busy mother, you're, uh, teaching people at the hospital.

Um, but is there something that you are involved in right now that you'd love people to know about? Um, you know, is there something that, uh, you've been involved in that you'd love them to be involved in as well? 

I can't think of anything. Cause I mean, I, we watch children's shows and eat chicken nuggets, so, um, That's my 

which chicken nuggets, which chicken nuggets are the best ones right now?

Um, we, we get the Dino nuggets with the panko seasoning, the panko crust. Mm-hmm little extra crunchy. Yep. We like a dino nugget. 

Um, what type of sauces do we do with the dino nuggets? 

Um, they're, they're just plain ketchup fellas.

I, I, I respect a plain ketchup. Yeah. Yeah. 

Um, I try, I tried to make veggie nuggets.

I, I didn't try to make them. I did make them and I liked them. I thought they were good. They tasted almost like falafel to me. Okay. But the boys thoroughly hated them.

Are, are you the, are you the person who also made their own gummies? You a couple

Yeah. they tasted like hot garbage .

I love that. I love that. Like, so often we're like, I'm gonna do, I could do this better at home. And it costs four times more and it tastes 

I'm gonna be the crunchy mom. And I'm so not that person, but I, I was like, I have gelatin, I have fruit juice. I can make my own gummies.

This is easy. And it smelled like death. They were the worst. Even my son who will eat just about anything was like, "mommy, these are nasty."

You know, we all have our gifts. 

I think it was the pomegranate juice. It, it didn't, I thought it would be a nice, like sweet and tangy kind of thing. No, mm-hmm did not 

gonna stick with stick with the regular gummies.

Yeah. Just buy panko-breaded dinos. Regular gummies. Ketchup. Yeah. 

What was the question again? What am I answering?

Yeah, 

just, you know, is there something that you you've heard recently that you really, this is kind of this question is kind of like, if this is kind of a platform, right? This is an opportunity to tell people like this is something that's interesting to me or whatever 

My platform is, vaccinate your freaking children.

Not just because I'm a doctor, but because I was, um, not allowed to vaccinate the, the boys, their mother refused. Um, and so until I got full custody of them, I couldn't vaccinate them. And Josiah got a major pneumonia and spent six days in the hospital this time, last year, because specifically he was not vaccinated against pneumonia. And so that was an illness that he would not have had to have had if he had been vaccinated at that point. Um, and so that's, that's my soapbox of choice, I think, 

is there, you know, and I have to ask this question cuz like I've, I am very close to people who

will not vaccinate their children. And it's very hard conversation to have, and I don't have the medical background or skills mm-hmm . But when someone says I'm hesitant to do this because of X, Y, or Z thing they saw on TikTok or YouTube or Instagram, what, what resources do you say that they should go to? The primary care doctor?

Who like, how do you as a doctor answer that question for someone who comes in and says, I'm not sure.

So for those kind of people, I, I do tend to pull more on just the personal level of, do you have the time or the money to be out of work for a week when your child is sick? Do you have

yeah 

the, the fortitude to deal with watching your child sit and, and cough up a lung and have hard shaking chills, because they've got their 11th day of hundred and four fevers.

That's what we dealt with with Josiah. And it's, it's just miserable. And I think once people see something like that, then they're more like, okay, I definitely don't want, I mean, everybody loves their kids. I, you know yeah, whether vaccinate or not. So I, they, I, I pulled more to that side of things of like, you don't wanna see your kid go through that and I hope you don't wanna see anybody else's kid go through that.

So for that reason alone vaccinate him. Right. 

Um, I think that's a really good point because I think a lot of times there's the perceived fear of the vaccination, um, whether whatever, whatever thing is listed about why you shouldn't vaccinate, there's that perceived fear. But the very real experience that people go through is seeing their child sick.

And it's scary. It's scary when they can't tell you why they don't feel good. They can't tell you what symptoms they're experiencing. They don't have the words. Right. So, um, so I, I think that's really good is, is weigh out the actual experience versus what you're perceiving that experience would be on the other side.

and the 

likelihood of something bad happening from the vaccine is 10,000 times less likely than the likelihood of something bad happening because they haven't had the vaccine. Yeah. And, um, and I'm glad for people who are not vaccinated, who have never been sick, that's wonderful, but there's always gotta be a first time.

I hate to say that . Yeah. Um, but I, I just, I don't like seeing children that ill and I've seen children die from vaccine- preventable illnesses. And I just, once you've seen it, once you never ever want it to happen again. 

Right. 

Um, If someone is listening today and they're like, okay, yeah, I should probably go get my child vaccinated,

is that something they would just go to a primary care physician for? Is that something they'd go to the health department for, um, 

any of the above mm-hmm 

just, just go to someone and say, Hey, let, can you, 

where do I get my shots? Yeah. They will be glad to help you. 

Mm, very good. Well, I, I, I think that's, I think that's great.

I love that we've covered everything from, from gardening to fostering and adopting to vaccinations. I think that this is, I think that I wouldn't expect anything less from a family medicine doctor . Yeah. But, um, I really appreciate your time today. Is there anything else that you feel like talking about gardens or talking about family or talking about medicine that you feel like you would, uh, need to talk about before our call's over.

If anyone can teach me how to make spinach live, holler at me, cuz I, I can't make it happen. 

Let's put it in the comments, email me. I'll send it over to Caitlin. We'll have a little session on spinach.

I would love to have some spinach. I can't make it work. 

all right. 

Well, we'll figure this out. I'll even come visit you we'll we'll make it.

We'll make it happen. 

Thank you. 

Caitlin. Thank you so much for taking some time outta your day. It was really great to, 

this was fun. 

Yeah. Good. It was really fantastic to connect with you again. It's been a hot minute. Um, and uh, I loved to hear what was going on in your life and we'll have to yeah. Do it again.

Yeah. Do it again, sometime. 

you gonna help today? You're allowed to help today. You just have to not be terrible. Don't knock everything over. Knock everything ooooover duplicate, make a copy. Mm. Yeah, I know I moved it so you can't stand on it.