WHy MLK Day is special to me.
January 21st, 2019 at 9:22:54 AM
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It was MLK Day 2007, and I was supposed to go to lunch with my Mom to discuss a part of the family business that wasn't functioning right. It's about 10 AM and she calls me to cancel it, saying she wasn't feeling well. She sounded bad but I was relieved I wasn't going to get lectured and didn't give it a another thought.
By coincidence, my sister who worked in a school district at the time and has the day off calls my Mom to see if she wants to go out with her. My mother tells her no, and then casually mentions she hasn't gotten out of bed yet. This is really unusual behavior for her and my sister is upset enough to drive over the house. My sister has a degree in Nursing although she has hardly ever used it and as soon as she sees my Mom, she decides she needs to go to the ER. She said she was pale as a ghost. She calls me while on the way and I meet them at the hospital. My Mom is already being seen and a Dr. comes out to say they are going to give her an angioplasty and it will be a few hours. We head over to the chapel and no more than 15 minutes goes by before we are paged. A different DR. meets us and tells us that instead of the angioplasty, she is going to need a much more complicated procedure. Normally, they would have to arrange for a specialist to come in but luckily Dr. Hernandez, who lives about forty minutes away, had come in to do something he normally wouldn't and is there and ready to go. Some of the veins or arteries in my Moms heart had pretty much dissolved and they ended up taking parts from elsewhere and patching her heart back together. Moms gone now, but the operation gave her nine more years, several of them where she was pretty good.
While the operation is going on, I google Dr. Hernandez, as we have never had any dealings with him.
Turns out he is quite the story. Born in Columbia, his mother left him to go to the states. She was supposed to send for him and his brother but never did. At about 15, he and his brother set out to make the long journey to Texas, where they thought she was. Arriving illegally in Texas, they were told she was in NY so they headed there. Long story short, this new illegal immigrant who spoke no English spent six months taking remedial English and graduated first in his class. Got a scholarship to Princeton, graduated in three years, went to Harvard Medical School and as of that date twelve years ago had performed over 10,000 life saving operations.
He starred in a Spanish language television show where, as Dr. Miracle, he explained basic hygiene and first aid to young kids.
I often think of the myriad of actions that had to occur for a kid from Columbia to save the life of a woman from Ireland in a hospital in NY.
As I have every MLK since then, today, I sent him a thank you card and a donation to Doctors Without Borders in his name.
This is an excerpt from the NY Times on his book
In recent months, the doctor’s amazing immigration story has captured nationwide media attention. In his upcoming book, Undocumented, Dr. Fernandez tells of growing up in a poor neighborhood in Medellín, Colombia, being illegally smuggled into the United States , excelling in school, getting accepted into Princeton University, seeing his undocumented alien status become known and then be resolved with the help of U.S. politicians, attending Harvard Medical School, undergoing a residency program at New York’s famous Bellevue Hospital, and embarking on a surgical career through which he gives back to society for all he has received. Beyond telling his own inspirational story, Fernandez puts a human face on the issue of immigration and reaffirms the American Dream of freedom, hard work, and success. His book represents the first time a former undocumented immigrant has told his own story of immigration and struggle in America on the way to finding acceptance and success at some of the highest levels of American society. Thus it shows not only what our nation has to offer immigrants but also what they have to offer us.
By coincidence, my sister who worked in a school district at the time and has the day off calls my Mom to see if she wants to go out with her. My mother tells her no, and then casually mentions she hasn't gotten out of bed yet. This is really unusual behavior for her and my sister is upset enough to drive over the house. My sister has a degree in Nursing although she has hardly ever used it and as soon as she sees my Mom, she decides she needs to go to the ER. She said she was pale as a ghost. She calls me while on the way and I meet them at the hospital. My Mom is already being seen and a Dr. comes out to say they are going to give her an angioplasty and it will be a few hours. We head over to the chapel and no more than 15 minutes goes by before we are paged. A different DR. meets us and tells us that instead of the angioplasty, she is going to need a much more complicated procedure. Normally, they would have to arrange for a specialist to come in but luckily Dr. Hernandez, who lives about forty minutes away, had come in to do something he normally wouldn't and is there and ready to go. Some of the veins or arteries in my Moms heart had pretty much dissolved and they ended up taking parts from elsewhere and patching her heart back together. Moms gone now, but the operation gave her nine more years, several of them where she was pretty good.
While the operation is going on, I google Dr. Hernandez, as we have never had any dealings with him.
Turns out he is quite the story. Born in Columbia, his mother left him to go to the states. She was supposed to send for him and his brother but never did. At about 15, he and his brother set out to make the long journey to Texas, where they thought she was. Arriving illegally in Texas, they were told she was in NY so they headed there. Long story short, this new illegal immigrant who spoke no English spent six months taking remedial English and graduated first in his class. Got a scholarship to Princeton, graduated in three years, went to Harvard Medical School and as of that date twelve years ago had performed over 10,000 life saving operations.
He starred in a Spanish language television show where, as Dr. Miracle, he explained basic hygiene and first aid to young kids.
I often think of the myriad of actions that had to occur for a kid from Columbia to save the life of a woman from Ireland in a hospital in NY.
As I have every MLK since then, today, I sent him a thank you card and a donation to Doctors Without Borders in his name.
This is an excerpt from the NY Times on his book
In recent months, the doctor’s amazing immigration story has captured nationwide media attention. In his upcoming book, Undocumented, Dr. Fernandez tells of growing up in a poor neighborhood in Medellín, Colombia, being illegally smuggled into the United States , excelling in school, getting accepted into Princeton University, seeing his undocumented alien status become known and then be resolved with the help of U.S. politicians, attending Harvard Medical School, undergoing a residency program at New York’s famous Bellevue Hospital, and embarking on a surgical career through which he gives back to society for all he has received. Beyond telling his own inspirational story, Fernandez puts a human face on the issue of immigration and reaffirms the American Dream of freedom, hard work, and success. His book represents the first time a former undocumented immigrant has told his own story of immigration and struggle in America on the way to finding acceptance and success at some of the highest levels of American society. Thus it shows not only what our nation has to offer immigrants but also what they have to offer us.
The older I get, the better I recall things that never happened
