Just When We Thought We'd Recovered …

Then on Jan. 29, 1999 Alan was in a serious automobile accident.  He was forced to slow down on a freeway exit ramp as the traffic in front of him became snarled, but the driver of the delivery truck behind him didn’t realize the traffic was changing speed.  The truck rammed into Alan from behind causing bones to fracture in the C4 and C5 area. Over the next several days, as we tried to determine the extent of his injury, Alan began losing strength in his left arm, his dominant arm.  He was in constant pain. Nothing seemed to help and neck surgery became inevitable.

Alan’s recovery period was very difficult.  Of course he could not see patients. But as soon as he could he went back to writing.  During his convalescence he had an “ah, ha” moment.  He realized that as much as he loved being at the birth of babies, and as much as he treasured nurturing families as their children grew, he could impact more lives in a week online than he could in his whole life in private practice. 

When his prescribed recovery period was over he tried to go back to the office.  Before his injury he had not realized what a physical job he’d had, but now examining every normal squirming toddler sent pain shooting through his neck and shoulders.  It took him two days off to recover from the pain of one day in the office.  After much anguish he decided to leave private practice to write as much of the time as he possibly could.  Of course he could not give up all direct face-to-face patient care so he continues to see patients and teach residents at Stanford’s Lucille Packard Children’s Hospital about 20% time. 

But if DrGreene.com couldn’t even provide my salary, how could it support us totally?