Vivid Tapestry

We took Lucy to an interesting new doctor yesterday. Her name is Johanna Steegmans and she was trained as a pediatrician in Germany, trained as a naturopathic physician here at Bastyr University, but seems to practice mostly as an anthroposophic physician, meaning she draws largely on the insights of Rudolf Steiner, creator of Waldorf education. I had heard of her and know people who have taken their children to see her. Then a month or two ago I saw her speak and I really liked her. She glowed for starters, but also just seemed the perfect combination of warmth and intelligence, wisdom and humor, compassion and insightfulness.

Lucy picks her thumbs, sometimes until they bleed. She picks at the sides of her thumbs with the nails of her index fingers, mostly just on the left, but occasionally on the right. She's been doing this for over a year. (I asked Lucy, by the way, if she was OK with me writing about this on the blog and she said she was fine with it.) She is usually too busy with her hands to pick, but at school, I think during storytelling and meal and snack times, she does this. She also does at home sometimes, usually if we are reading to her. After spring break, they were more healed than usual, but often they are at least rough and calous-y and sometimes they have small wounds or scabs. We've tried lots of things to stop it - nutritional interventions (is it a calcium deficiency?), giving her another object to play with (works temporarily), lots of Dora the Explorer and Fairy band-aids. The band-aids do help, of course. But she still picks when she doesn't have one on. So this is why we wanted to take her to see Dr. Steegmans. What would this wise woman healer have to offer?

It was so fun to go to her office, located in her beautiful house with a lovely garden. The whole family went to see her - Jasper and Lucy played and Rob and I talked with Dr. S. She asked so many questions, including questions about Lucy's birth and early years. Lucy loved her and told me afterwards that she wanted Johanna to be her regular doctor. Johanna does not act as a primary care doctor, so that isn't possible.

Johanna did ask Lucy lots of questions too. Two of them were especially unusual and interesting. The first was "What are you afraid of?" Lucy had to think about this. Finally, she said, "Panthers and Dragons." Then Johanna asked if that was all, adding that some children are afraid of the dark (Lucy says "No, not me"), some are afraid of water (Lucy says "No"), some are afraid of ghosts (Lucy says "Ghosts are just spirits; what's frightening about that?"). Finally, Jasper says, "I'm afraid of giants" and Lucy says "yes, me too, they can't get in the doorway, but they can lift up your whole house, but some of them are friendly." I have to say that now that I think of it, Lucy is afraid of very little. She climbs very high in trees, she plunges into deep water even though she can't swim yet, she walks along the top of our fence. She likes the dark. She talks to strangers freely.

The other interesting question Johanna asked was "If I had magic wand and could grant you three wishes, what would you wish for?" This one Lucy really had to think about. Finally she said, "I would wish that Jasper hadn't eaten the chocolate egg I was saving for Dad. Second, I would wish for a magic wand for myself. And third, I would wish for a crystal because I don't have one." Then Lucy waited expectantly. Johanna said she was the first child who actually seemed to believe Johanna could grant the wishes.

Johanna gave us a homeopathic remedy after all this; we give Lucy just one dose on Friday evening. And wait. We'll keep you posted...