The Oxygen Cycle

With your permission, I would like to take us back to a scary place:

6^th grade science class

Braces. Awkwardness. Cooties. Scratchy voice. Hair growing in places it never grew before.

Sorry, if that makes you squirm. For 6^th graders who are reading this, those are all compliments of your pre-teen development that adults “miss” dearly.

Now, call to mind your 6^th grade science teacher and you might remember them introducing the Oxygen Cycle. Oxygen (O2) is generated as a waste product of photosynthesis. This O2 is given off by plants and then taken into the lungs of animals/humans to sustain their lives. Animals/humans give off carbon dioxide (CO2) as a waste product and that is soaked up by plants.

Now that I have you really smiling a big pre-teen, mouth-of-braces, grin, I will share what this cycle really has to teach us.

Oxygen. For us, it represents everything that sustains and supports us in this life.

Call to mind the oxygen in your life – the people, the communities, the Higher Power, etc. that sustain you.

Take a few deep breaths and take in that oxygen that sustains life – literally and figuratively. Physically and metaphysically. Spiritually and in 6^th grade form, pairs of oxygen atoms connected by a double bond.

Give thanks for the oxygen in your life.

But life cannot exist simply by breathing in. We must also exhale what is not needed. For us, that is CO2, carbon dioxide.

Call to mind the carbon dioxide in your life – the elements of life that do not serve you being the best you. Things that hold you back. We all carry this CO2 – fear, self-doubt, selfishness, trauma – as it is part of life, part of the Oxygen Cycle.

Give thanks for the carbon dioxide in your life.

Yes, as important as it is to give thanks and breathe in the O2 of our lives, we can work toward a place of gratitude toward CO2. We can also work on the practice of long, slow exhales and ways to release  our CO2.

There is nothing inherently wrong with the carbon dioxide in our lives as long as we have ways to release it. If left to build up in the body, CO2 causes a medical condition known as hypercapnia which can be fatal. (For those that are curious, COVID-19 does cause respiratory failure but not elevated CO2…but this blog is not about the pandemic, if you have been paying attention.)

Practice today, in the name of 6^th grade science class and the Oxygen Cycle.

Deep breaths in – soak in that oxygen.

Deep breaths out - let go of your carbon dioxide.

Practice a loving mindset and heartset with both actions.

One last thought. It is profound to me that the same CO2 waste product we expel is a life-giving force to the plants around us. Staring at my photosynthesizing relatives, I wonder if they have this same reflection as they watch us gobble up the O2 waste product they were all too eager to release.

Life is beautiful in that way. Not only do we participate in the Oxygen Cycle, but we do so inter-connected to each other in a way that sustains life for us all.

As an added bonus to this week’s piece, I have recorded an 8-minute guided meditation using the Oxygen Cycle as our guide (geez, my 6^th grade science teacher must be proud right now! Or ashamed. Either way, here it is: https://youtu.be/q27YEwPaQk8

In memory of Cheii Bahe Manybeads, 6.20.25 - 4.4.20

Cheii Bahe Manybeads (left) with his brother Cheii Eddie (right) with Shannon on our wedding day.

Grandpa

Uncle

Brother

Cheii

Hatałii

Our grandpa, 95 years this June,

Has crossed over to next world, the virus ushering him forward

Loving embrace still felt

Laughter echoing

Learning carried on by all he touched

Leaving us to follow his lead

                             How to serve others

                             How to master the simple life

                             How to cultivate our medicine

From my wife Shannon, as she remembers

Cheii Bahe Manybeads was a man that was never a great uncle, or just my Cheii (maternal grandfather) Eddie’s brother.

He was my Cheii, and I am very fortunate to have known him for all these years. I probably met him in my youth but don’t remember. But I never knew my Cheii Eddie had a brother, and I had an aunts and uncles from that relationship. I was fortunate to rekindle the relationship when I was in high school.

My Cheii Bahe was always considered to be very intelligent. My mother explained that he was one who finished school, learning how to speak and read not only in English but Diné too! He was one of my inspirations for continuing school, and keeping my traditional perspective in Diné. He was also one I think of as being really funny, while being so serious at the same time. When my mother and I visited him and his wife, he would like to tell stories, and show his new inventions to something he made. He also enjoyed when we brought my Cheii Eddie and Masani Mae to visit. But he really liked it when his brother Eddie visited them. I would just listen to them talk about the things they had done 30 years ago, as if it just happened the day before.  

Their relationship reminded me of how love and faith keep a friendship alive. They taught that each day should not be taken for granted. They taught me life is precious, they taught me to respect all are our relations. They taught me, to just be me, no matter what changed around me.  I trusted, honored, respected, and loved these two gentlemen.

When it can time for me to marry, my Cheii Bahe is one gentleman I wanted to be involved with the Diné marriage ceremony. And so, I asked him if he could do the honors of provide the medicine for our marriage. At first, he was hesitant because like all Diné grandfathers he was stingy. He was wondering, “Who is this guy that wants to marry my granddaughter? Is he worthy? How much is he going to give me?”

He gave me a hard time, asking with a smile, “Is this the guy?” He made me laugh so much, and I kept telling him “Yes!” I had to ask my aunt to help get him to say “yes” to carrying out the ceremony, like I was asking him to marry me. He eventually gave in, leading the blessing of walking me into my Diné marriage with my husband and both of our families.

Ahéhee’ (thank you) for giving the blessing of marriage.

Cheii was more than an Hatałii (Medicine Man).

He was the medicine.

Hózhó náhásdlíí’
Hózhó náhásdlíí’
Hózhó náhásdlíí’
Hózhó náhásdlíí’

Service to Others: Antidote for Fear

It started with a trip to the zoo. The gorilla exhibit, to be exact.

Our youngest daughter Sihasin, meaning “to have hope” in Navajo, was quite afraid of these creatures. They looked and acted just a bit too much like humans. Giraffes – beautiful and tall. Hippos – wet and splashy. Both intimidating in their own right, but it was the human-ness of the gorillas that got to her.

I had an idea.

“Sihasin, can you hold my hand please? I am scared of these gorillas. Please.”

She turned to me and forgot her own fright, reached for my hand, and proceeded to gently walk me past the gorillas.

“Dad, it’s okay. Don’t be scared.”

As the pandemic settles in, all of us are scared. All of us see the gorilla and want to know how to overcome the fear it causes. (Trying hard to avoid cliché mention of the 800lb…whew…almost!)

I would say, on behalf of Sihasin who could not be here tonight due to “bedtime rules”, that reaching out to hold someone’s hand is the best antidote we can find.

There is so much we can do to serve others, to hold their hand right now - delivering food boxes, sewing masks, and spreading kindness are becoming infectious in an incredible way.

What happens when we turn the TV and news off, turning our hands and heart into a more positive direction. For you. For your neighbor. For those in dire need.

Back to Sihasin.

We found that this technique worked quite well with her in many situations. Loud noises from trucks, vacuum cleaners and the like really rattle her. But without fail, once we show her our fear of that same item, she loses all sense of fright and goes into helping mode. 

Think for a moment – I bet you have witnessed in your own self a moment that illustrates this principle in your own life. Maybe even a moment in the last week, as this pandemic has given us lots of gorilla exhibit moments. For the parents and grandparents, maybe you have seen this technique work with your little ones.

But there was a moment that stunned me, reminding me the innate wisdom our little ones have. 

We were in a public place, which for a 2-year old immediately sets off an alarm located in the bladder.

“Daddy, I need to go potty,” she wiggled and wriggled.

Off to the potty we went. Uh-oh. Vacuum cleaner. A loud one.

The ritual began – her expressing fear, daddy expressing my own fear. Sihasin reaching for my hand, pulling me toward the bathroom.

But on the way out, she did something brand new. Remember that the two minutes in the bathroom is an eternity for a little mind. So, I prepared to replay the same ritual as we got done washing our hands.

Instead, before I said anything, as we left the bathroom she grabs my hand and rushes me past the still loud, obnoxious, threatening vacuum cleaner.

“Dad, it’s okay. Don’t be scared.”

She had made the connection without me having to prompt her. She didn’t even ask if I was scared. It didn’t matter. What she had figured out for herself was that the best way to overcome her fear was to focus on being there for me.

Whether gorilla or vacuum cleaner analogy works better for you, put this into action today around your fears in this moment and when life returns to normal. Find someone whose hand you will hold, knowing it is a win-win proposition. Symbiosis in its simplest form.

Some of us will need some prompting, for instance an email/text/voicemail of desperation that becomes the outstretched hand that we will reach to grab. Or maybe, like Sihasin, we can go one step further, reaching out our hands, trusting that someone else will be there to grab on.

In a non-pandemic moment, the question might be “What do I get out of this” and “Whose hand am I about to touch?” and “What if there is no hand there at all?” Often, this line of questions convinces us not to reach hand out at all.

Our current situation, with a globe unified in its suffering, helps us overcome those questions, helping us see how and who we can be, now and always. This moment teaches us that the hand that meets ours will lead both to a better place.

Translated to Sihasin’s world: to the hippos and giraffes.


Note: our Native Health Initiative has started a "Loving Service Support" effort, a chance to connect those that want to give time/skills/money and those needing support. Click here for details.

Job Description: Exhaustion

It has been 5 weeks, 5 Wednesday nights. The ritual of sitting with blank piece of electronic paper and making something happen. Building community around this simple act of writing. I am thankful.

While it has all been focused on healing in this moment, I have avoided some of the day-to-day struggles that all of us face in this “new normal” of Zoom-living, cabin fever disequilibrium.

But, I have heard it too many times in the last week to ignore.

“I feel like my work is asking way too much of me. I am working harder than ever, it seems. I am exhausted.”

A family physician myself, I am reduced to seeing patients by phone visits. The volume is low compared to normal, yet I too share in that exhaustion.

Let us explore and understand the exhaustion together for a moment.

First, we must travel to a different world than our current one.

Let us time travel far back, to the The World of February 2020.

Remember that world? You were buying your spring concert tickets, signing the kids up for baseball and soccer leagues? You were hugging people and should anyone keep 6 feet apart from you, you would have taken it as an insult. Crazy, huh?

Okay, so travelling back to The World of February 2020, you get a job offer that reads as follows:

“Great job, perfect for the extremely flexible. Rules, protocols, and responsibilities will change daily. Emails with a tone of “we might need to really start panicking now” will fly at you every 3-5 minutes. You will have to work with people without being in the room with people, with no drop in your efficiency. You must quickly master something called Zoom and develop Zoom skills such as “how to raise your hand” and “picking a background picture” on this technology. As an added perk to this job, you may have to be a full-time school teacher simultaneously while you work for us. Oh, one more thing - your time off from work will involve confinement in the home, so that work will become the majority of socialization in your weekly routine.”

Yikes! Raise your hand if you would sign up for that job. (No need to use Zoom for this).

Imagine how quickly the labor unions of The World of February 2020 would reject this!

Medical diagnosis in The World of February 2020 would be Meshuggah, Yiddish for CRAZY!

A moment to sigh together.

A chance to understand together the fatigue that we are feeling.

On some levels, most of us are doing less work, producing less in our time at work. But the exhaustion is about the work of adapting, bending, contorting ourselves each day, each week, over and over to a new way of being, both in the 9 to 5 and the rest of our lives is CRAZY! Exhausting!

Three prescriptions for our collective exhaustion – appreciate, structure, and laughter.

Appreciate: Take time today to appreciate the work you have done to adapt to a new world that we would have laughed at just 30 days ago or in The World of February 2020. Take arms forward and wrap them around upper torso for a tight self-hug. Affirmation that this current world is exhausting. Patience with self, reminding that fatigue is inevitable with the job description and life disequilibrium we have been handed. Replace resisting the exhaustion with working to accept it.

Structure: Take a piece of electronic or tree-derived paper and draw out your schedule for today and the following two days. Step back and take a look at what your current schedule/structure looks like. Are there simple things that you can change that would relieve cognitive load? Now that most are working from home, have you set rules about how to set a firm end to the work-day, a point beyond which calls and emails are left for the following day? Is there structure for fun and play included in your schedule? Make changes as needed!

Laughter: It might be one of our best medicines in all of this. Seriously, can we just laugh for a moment at what our current job description and life description has evolved into? Imagine us all around a campfire (not even 6 feet apart from one another!) in The World of February 2020 enjoying a hearty laugh as we ready the job description above. Laugh and keep laughing! Best results when done with others.

My brothers and sisters in exhaustion, as the saying goes, “When the The World of February 2020 laughs at you, you join in the laughter!”

Wind, Our Teacher

Wind.

It seems to be ever-present in the early spring days of New Mexico.

Heavy wind, blowing day after day can be aggravating. One scientific theory behind this is that wind disrupts our sense of equilibrium. There is even a condition – ancraophobia – that is an extreme fear of wind.

We could complain about the strong gusts that will likely greet us today (again), intent on blowing us off our feet, ruining our hair.

But you wouldn’t be reading this if that were you.

What is the wind is trying to teach us in this pandemic moment?

Part 1: Indigenous wisdom on the wind

Our Indigenous traditions are quite clear that wind is a powerful way to cleanse what needs to be blown away.

A Dine’ colleague shares “When you pray and the wind shows its presence, the Holy Ones are with you.”

Karen Waconda-Lewis (Isleta/Laguna) relates, “Wind is the sacred Air Element. Air Element comes to us at the first breath. In spring, Air Element is most active after winter when it sleeps. Just like birth.”

CC Alonso de Franklin (Mexica/Lipan Apache) adds, “Ehecatl is the God of the wind, part of fertility. We are not to be afraid of the wind because it cleanses, it takes away what is no longer needed. She continues in describing Ehecatl, “It lacks physical form and is an energy that cannot be pinned down. We have to flow with it.”

So much wisdom in those interpretations.

Let me translate this into a wind meditation we can all practice today.

Greet the wind, turning into the wind with arms outstretched to your sides. Flow with it. Take a moment here – how good and freeing it is to greet the wind that we often spend so much energy resisting.

Feel the Air Element as it passes between fingers, brushes against face. Feel its breath, its embrace.

Now, let it do the work of cleansing. “Ehacatl, wipe away that which does not serve me and humankind to live to our truest self.” Name things needing to be swept away if that is meaningful for you.

Take as much time as you need.

Close with gratitude in your own way, language, and tradition.

Part 2: Bike-ride wisdom on the wind

I had a hard-to-explain moment with the wind last week.

I had convinced my two oldest children to bike a long distance with me, and we headed north. The wind was heavy and at our backs.

“Dad, this feels so easy. There is no wind today.”

Hmmm…How do I explain to them that when wind is pushing us we often don’t appreciate its presence? How do I explain why we only notice it when it is a headwind in our face?

The tailwind is all that we take for granted – food, shelter, safety, love, family, community. It is privilege – the tailwind that accompanies Whiteness, being male, being heterosexual, speaking English fluently, having U.S. Citizenship, formal education, wealth, etc. Tailwinds blow many of us in the direction of success, leading to a sense of “This feels so easy.” Those with that heavy tailwind pushing them often wonder why others are struggling to achieve.

Even as we mature, it is a challenge to see the way the winds blow us forward.

We are now in a global moment where my kids were when we turned 180 degrees and began to head home, to the south. Heavy, gusting, unrelenting wind in our face.

“Dad, where did this wind come from?”

This headwind we find ourselves in gives us chances to recognize the blessings the tailwind life has granted us all along. Start with the simple joys of being around others at a park, at a play, at the store, even in the waiting room of MVD or a dentist’s office – do you appreciate these just a bit more in the headwind of COVID-19? Take a moment to reflect on your own privilege and how it blows doors open that for others shut in their face.

The headwind makes us push a bit harder for things we have taken for granted.

In the case of the bike ride, it was the way back that was going to reveal my children’s fortitude and resilience. 

Complain, they did. (luckily for daddy, the wind was strong enough that I could not make out much of what they were saying….shhhh, don’t tell them).

But it was the way back, not the way out, that strengthened them for the next ride.

In the strong headwinds of life, the blessings lie.

As we turn the corner into April, we have just barely made the 180 degree turn into the coronavirus wind. 

There will be tough moments on this ride home, and we might even find ourselves struggling, wondering if we will make it.

Don’t focus right now on making it out of this headwind, making it home. The blessing is in embracing the wind, flowing with it, learning from it as it cleanses us on the way.

Thank you, wind.

Pic taken while facing/embracing strong westerly winds on a March day from the Volcanos west of Albuquerque.

Turning North to Get South

In running, I find healing and meaning in some of their purest forms. I have always thought that I could write a “how-to” guide on life just from the lessons learned while flying over the trails.

No technology to track my steps or miles, no fancy gear, nothing to sync my data to show the rest of the world (if a tree falls in a forest and it is not captured on social media, did it really happen? The answer my millennial students would give is a “What tree? What forest?”).

So, feeling a bit drained from a long week, I laced up my shoes and headed to the strong medicine of the Sandia Mountains for three hours of play.

I was about an hour into the run when I got directions from a friend I happened to pass on the trail.

“It’s going to look like you are going the wrong direction, heading north, but that trail will take you home to the south.”

From 6 feet away I panted “Thanks, brother.” I climbed further into my playground, trying to accept that heading north was actually going to get me south.

In our current moment, there is comfort we can find in having someone to guide us.

Reflect on all of the messages you received in the last 48 hours from authorities about new restrictions and updated procedures related to coronavirus, all of them asking us to turn north, just to make it to the south. Beyond feeling inundated and overwhelmed, perfectly normal responses, do you remember feeling a sense of relief that someone was guiding your way? Did you take a moment to think about what it means for our communities and larger society that we are able to work for the collective good in a way that we rarely see?

When those emails, “alert texts” and newsflashes come across your screens today, pause, breathe deep and give thanks for the CDCs, the DOHs, the frontline healthcare workers of the world who are there to protect and guide us. Yes, we are all being asked to turn north with a promise that it will be our best way to make it south safely. Again, find comfort that someone is there to guide your/our path. Allow yourself to trust that advice.

Well, being both stubborn and directionally-challenged, a few hours after that encounter, I found myself nowhere near my starting point and heading south, climbing higher and higher. You would have thought that the patches of snow and glimpses of the ridge that signaled the top of the mountain would have kind of, sort of told me I might want to re-evaluate my current path since I needed to end up about 3,000 feet lower than my elevation at that moment. (Perfectly okay to laugh here.)

“I am heading south so I must be going the right way!” I told myself over and over.

Our lives are the route. The map in our head tells us the only way to turn is south, blinding us from seeing that we clearly headed the wrong way. 

Maybe COVID-19 (or “Mr. 19” as one of my patient’s nicknamed it) is the turn to the north that will get us where we are meant to go???? With some bumps and tests of faith along the way, but maybe it is getting us “home” despite our feeling that it is taking us the wrong way.

My friends, “Mr. 19” has turned us north.

Let’s accept it.

Let’s embrace it.

Find joy in the path ahead.

Be an active part of it getting yourself “home” in a way that, like a long run, leaves us replenished and renewed even if exhausted.

p.s. In case you are worrying that I am writing this stranded in the mountains, I did make it to the car, just under the 6-hour mark. Replenished, renewed, exhausted. The blessing was not the finish line, but the journey north that it took to get there.

The Superpower of Being Pesent

I turned to my 2-year old daughter with a simple ask: “Can you worry about tomorrow for me?”

Blank stare.

“All I am asking is that you worry about tomorrow. Just follow the lead of us adults who make it look easy. Now, can you do that for daddy? (Don’t you know about the latest case of coronavirus?)”

Blank stare.

Now, a quick question for all of us – how much of each day do we spend worrying about the future, particularly as it relates to coronavirus? How much time is our mind spent on tomorrow, next week, April, June, etc.?

I would  have gotten a similar blank stare if I were to demand that my daughter worry about what happened yesterday, last week, or 30 minutes ago.

Think of the children in your life, in your family. Bring their presence to mind and imagine what a wonderful superpower they possess: an inability to live anywhere but the present. Their superpower is living in the moment.

This moment, the COVID-19 chapter of our world and of our lives, implores us to be more like our children in this regard.

Being present is a wonderful thing. It relieves stress caused by focusing on failures of the past and worries of the future. Both realms are un-reachable, largely un-changeable. But at the same time, they both entice and tease our minds such that we often find ourselves everywhere but in the moment as we focus on changing what has already passed or what may (or may not) come to be.

Living as our children model so well, in the moment, has an immediate influence on our health and wellness. Tuning out the constant barrage of news about coronavirus and tuning into what is before you will bring calm, serenity, and a sense that all is okay. It will allow you to enjoy the moment, the small pleasures our senses offer us, things that pass us by when we are lost somewhere else on the time continuum. The touch of an elder, the smell of a blossoming fruit tree, the way the wind feels against our cheek – open up to the present and it is all there for you.

Just ask the 2-year olds.

In this time where we more than ever need to be there for family, friends, neighbors, co-workers and our larger community, there is no more important place to start than to work on being more present. When that phone call comes, frantic and worried voice on the other end, they need a “you” that is grounded in what is. Not what was. Not what might come to be. But grounded in what is at that moment.

A simple ask for today – let’s re-kindle that superpower of our children. Let us put aside the constant news feeds and social media posts about a world with no TP, all of it distractions from the gift that is the present. Let us be more mindful to gently steer the thought train back to the moment when it starts to take us elsewhere.

I imagine coming to my toddler for advice, and instead of blank stare, this is what I would hear:

“Dad, watch yourself breathing. Pay attention to the sensation of “being”. Fall in love with the moment you are in, because you won’t have it back.”

“Now, dad, can you dig in the dirt with me? Play, that’s my other superpower.”

A Gratitude Perspective on Coronavirus

I often turn to my children when facing life’s vexing moments. So I did just that.

“Kiddos, what do you think coronavirus is here to teach us?"

My 11 year-old spoke first, “To be thankful for our health.”

Gratitude, huh?

I step back from this moment and wonder if she is on to something.

Working as a physician and educator at UNM and having spent the better part of the last days thinking about the implications of COVID-19 for our New Mexico population down to the level of patients and students, I am thankful for this moment.

If you will allow, I would like to infuse some coronavirus-induced gratitude into the moment in which we find ourselves.

First, a time to see more clearly the importance of the people and communities that sustain us. Reflect on this when (likely today…again!) your workplace huddles together to discuss COVID-19 precautions and procedures. It is so easy to work around great people and, distracted by the work to be done, forget to appreciate those doing the work. Reflect on it, but don’t stop there – tell the beautiful people around you how much you value them. I can’t leave this topic without thinking of the epidemic of loneliness that afflicts our society that claims to be so technologically connected - take a moment to notice the neighbor, classmate, work colleague who do not have community and invite them into yours.

Second, in a world eternally on fast forward, truncated to 140 character messages, coronavirus gives us a moment to pause, breathe deep, slow down, dig deeper. Self care – increase the dose! Story time with your children – increase the dose! Prayer, exercise and other ways that you connect with yourself and things larger than you – increase the dose! Start today with the birds and trees outside your house and office that greet you only to have you rush past without a nod or smile. Continue with the food you eat – take a moment to slow down and be mindful of how this food got to your plate. Consume accordingly. Consider this next few weeks an extended snow day, an invitation to slow down to a healthier speed of living than our usual. And since angst and anxiety are among us, spreading like the virus itself, your work to slow down and breathe deep will be good medicine.

Last, a very simple ask of myself and all of us, returning to my daughter’s advice – gratitude. Make a point today to express gratitude. If necessary, use words. Make your living something the poets and prophets speak of, gratitude in your heart and hands (washed frequently, of course). In the 100,000 heartbeats, 20,000 breaths, and the 86,400 seconds that make today, take a few heartbeats, breaths, and seconds to give thanks. Increase dose steadily.

The test question for my students would be simple:

“Coronavirus – curse or blessing?”

You get to decide today what answer to choose!

The idea - writing to heal.

As we began this road into pandemic world, I knew that writing would be part of my loving response. I didn't know exactly what form it would take, but I knew that it would take me to places I need to go.

I sit each Wednesday night, after the 4 little ones and my wife have gone to bed and trust that something will come. No notes to study, no drawn out plan for the piece, but simply a prayerful sense that what is meant to come out will emerge.

My hope is that this blog inspires in some very specific ways.
1) In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, I hope these words will bring true healing to a planet united in its suffering and grieving.

1a) May the structure of these writings on a weekly basis can serve to remind that structuring our life for healing in this moment is critical - movement, spirituality, journaling, art, humor, etc - build the structures that will allow you to heal through this pandemic.

2) I pray that the words themselves are meaningful for those who read them. Not meaningful in an academic way, but in a way that inspires people to action in a loving way toward self, family, neighbors, community, Mother Earth and this world.
3) I hope this will inspire readers to find their own gifts toward healing, and for those whose gifts are "asleep", hidden under the surface and collecting dust, I hope this will inspire them to awaken, come out of hiding, and becoming living/breathing elements in your lives, for this world.

Anthony Fleg, M.D./M.P.H. 

University of New Mexico 

(Dept of Family and Community Medicine and College of Population Health)Native Health Initiative (and NHI's Running Medicine program)

Proud Daddy

p.s. Please share the pieces from this blog with your own families and communities. I only ask that they not be published in online, print or other media without my permission.

Contact info: Email - afleg@salud.unm.edu; NHI website - www.lovingservice.us; Running Medicine - https://runningmedicine.org; Social media - not on it :)