BLOG: My Patients My Heroes: The Footprint of Carol’s Grandson
Carol came for her routine follow-up for her pituitary disorder.
As I was examining her, I noticed a beautiful tattoo on her forearm (Figure). I asked her about the tattoo. She said it is the footprint of her grandson, now 12 years old.
She shared the memories of the tattoo that she was recalling so vividly and so joyfully:
“Soon after he was born, I took the birth certificate, the familiar (preliminary) fancy and colorful certificate with the footprint that is issued by obstetric units, to my tattooist and requested to have it tattooed on my forearm.”
I was so touched by the tattoo’s story.
I then shared with Carol how I got into the tattooing literature on Medical Alert Tattoos (MAT) many years ago.
In 2008, I saw a patient with type 1 diabetes. As I was examining him, I noticed a MAT that had been recently tattooed on his wrist. As I was surprised, but not objecting, he felt happy to share his enthusiasm about the tattoo. He said he accompanied his wife to a tattoo parlor to get a decorative tattoo for herself, he had the idea of asking the tattooist if he can tattoo on his wrist a picture of the diabetes medical alert bracelet that he was wearing on his wrist. The tattooist said he had never done that before, but he would be happy to.
The tattooed MAT was pretty, and as it was new to me, I asked the patient for permission to report this as a medical case report to the upcoming American Association of Clinical Endocrinology (AACE) meeting, as a case report abstract. He not only approved, but was so excited about it. He wished to share his innovation with the world.
I was not expecting AACE to accept my abstract, but not only was the abstract accepted, they also notified me that they would include the abstract for media coverage in the press room. I had never had any of my prior research work covered in the media! The case was published in USA Today, and that was the first media interview I ever had.
I was subsequently pleasantly overwhelmed by the amount fame that the MAT case report achieved. Over the following 3 to 4 weeks, I was called by numerous media outlets, from BBC-London to Radio Canada, to Voice of America, to several other radio/TV stations, online and print media outlets. As I recall, the funniest interview was with “The Rutherford Show” talk show in Edmonton, Canada. The show’s host, David N. Rutherford, surprised me with a question about the controversial tattoo “DNR” — for “do not resuscitate” — that some folks have on their chest. He asked: “What if I tattoo my name, DNR, on my chest, and then I have a heart attack? Would the doctors not resuscitate me?”
This DNR dilemma is another story for another day!
I then published multiple cases and research papers about medical alert tattoos, which are available in the medical literature. However, the most interesting thing is what I have just found out as I was searching for this topic: One of my papers was cited in Wikipedia under the search phrase “Medical Tattoo.” It is listed as reference No. 12 and linked with this sentence:
“Tattoos have also been used to provide notice to emergency personnel that a person has diabetes mellitus; people with this condition may fall into a diabetic coma and be unable to communicate that information” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_tattoo).
Toward the end of Carol’s visit, as I was finishing her clinic visit in the electronic medical records, I spotted something very intriguing.
I said: “I can't believe this!”
She asked: “Believe what?”
“Carol, you have the same birthday as my birthday, but different year.”
She kind of did not believe and then asked: "Show me your driver's license.”
I proudly pulled my wallet out and showed her my driver's license. Then we went on to chat about how we shared so many things.
I finally said: “Do you know who else shares our birthday? My daughter.”
My youngest daughter, Malak, was my 39th birthday present, and she was a heavenly compensation for the loss of our daughter, Jinan, who we had lost a year before. I wrote about the story of Jinan and Malak in a prior post:
“And the best part about memories of Jinan, kind of a happy ending to this experience, is that our family has been blessed with a beautiful little angel, Malak (“angel” in Arabic), born a year after Jinan's passing. Malak is now 18 years old, healthy and smart with a great sense of humor! Malak has just started college at MSU, becoming the fourth Aldasouqi Spartan and the last one still in college. MSU is a family tradition: My affiliation with MSU began in 1992, when I began postgraduate medical training at Hurley Medical Center, Flint, which is a community hospital affiliate of MSU. Most delightfully, Malak was my 39th birthday “heavenly” gift, born exactly on my birthday, so April 20 is a double-hitter at our house.”
I then asked Carol’s permission to write her story for this blog and with this picture. She approved and said she would share the story with all her family and friends. This will be the template for the blog, like many of prior blogs, which began as posts like this one.
Reference:
- Kluger N, Aldasouqi S. Presse Med. 2013;doi:10.1016/j.lpm.2012.04.009.
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