{"id":20324,"date":"2019-11-17T19:33:52","date_gmt":"2019-11-18T03:33:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=20324"},"modified":"2019-11-19T19:47:03","modified_gmt":"2019-11-20T03:47:03","slug":"david-wong-louie-tribute","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=20324","title":{"rendered":"Kauser Ahmed: David Wong Louie Tribute"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Kauser Ahmed (Middle) with David Wong Louie’s wife (Right) and son (Left)<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019m Kauser Ahmed \u2013 I\u2019m a psychologist , the Director of \u00a0the Simms Mann Center at UCLA , and I\u2019m here representing all the members of the medical team that came to know and love David over the many years that he was cared for at UCLA Health.<\/span><\/p>\n

I met David in the fall of 2013, during one of the few periods that David was not dealing with treatment for cancer itself but trying to navigate a path through what surviving cancer for the nth time could look like for him.\u00a0\u00a0 David was referred to me as a part of a survivorship consultation and he was appropriately skeptical about what I had to offer.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I, for my part, was on the wrong track from the first,\u00a0 having received a referral that identified him as Dr. Louie.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cHow long have you been NED, Dr. Louie ?\u201d ,<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0 I asked, \u00a0NED\u00a0 being medicalese for no evidence of disease \u2013\u00a0 sometimes shorthand for remission and \u00a0always hedging bets against actually saying \u00a0\u201cyou are cured\u201d.\u00a0 I wanted this doctor to know that I spoke the code, too.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s that?\u201d<\/strong> David responded.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0I was confused. What kind of doctor didn\u2019t know what NED was?\u00a0\u00a0 As we soon cleared the mix up and I offered an apology for having \u201cracially profiled him as a physician because he was Asian\u201d, David, after a moment, had the final word and wrote \u201cI mean, I did KNOW what NED was. I just wasn\u2019t SURE.\u201d Clearly, most of the way to being a doctor.<\/span><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know that I ever told David that such a misidentification is almost unheard of in hospitals since physicians never refer to anyone as doctors but other physicians.\u00a0 The fact that he was known as Dr. Louie spoke, if not to his medical credentials, certainly to the esteem that the medical team that cared for David held him in.\u00a0 And in that sense, \u00a0I think they knew from the beginning that David would daily test and teach us all about the limits of \u00a0medicine , the tenacity of his spirit and the solemn grace of David\u2019s \u00a0choices beyond any textbook algorithms about how to parse \u00a0what \u00a0\u201c quality of life\u201d means.<\/span><\/p>\n

Over time, David and I settled into a familiar rhythm of sitting side by side as he wrote on his clipboard and I read his words out loud before taking my turn with a brief question or observation.\u00a0 I suspect that some of what David appreciated most about those hours was the ability to hear his own words spoken out loud, if not in his own voice, at least unhurried and filling up all the space in the room.\u00a0 I was mindful to give David\u2019s words the lion\u2019s share of this privileged space. \u00a0And my reward, when I, infrequently, had something to add that merited approval was a quick and decisive thumbs up.<\/span><\/p>\n

While words were both of our stock in trade, there was so much that couldn\u2019t be said and sometimes just didn\u2019t need words to express.\u00a0 I grew to be fluent in David Louie hand gestures, eye rolls and the all important wave\u00a0 –\u00a0 dismissive, questioning, definitive and sometimes just dismayed.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

David did not suffer fools \u2013 those who earned his dismissal were people who could not do a proper needle stick but wouldn\u2019t admit defeat, people who called meetings of all kinds \u2013 especially administrative ones, \u00a0\u00a0certain but not all seasons of the Bachelor, \u00a0\u00a0inexplicably, Sean White, the snowboarder whom he deemed \u201coverrated\u201d, and the entire ER department at UCLA.\u00a0\u00a0 And while David now used words differently than he did as a professor or writer, \u00a0\u00a0he remained ever a craftsman, creating I think mini masterpieces of succinct and incisive prose.\u00a0\u00a0 One of my favorite communications from him was when I briefly lived in San Diego and wondered what it was that I was missing that others loved so much about the place.\u00a0 \u201cSand and enslaved whales?\u201d David offered helpfully.<\/span><\/p>\n

The David that I and my fellow team members at UCLA knew was not the David who spoke, who ate and cooked, who held court at conferences or dinner parties or read eloquently from his own beautiful writing.\u00a0 He was frequently very tired, sometimes in pain, and, far too often in the midst of some truly awful medical calamity that no one was sure how to fix or certain that he could survive.\u00a0 And yet, the David we knew and cherished, I think was not so different from the one you knew.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0Even with all that, David was still to be the most powerful presence in any room.\u00a0 Without words, he radiated brilliance, warmth and vitality and managed always to a have personal and unique relationship with every person whom he encountered, complete with inside jokes and lessons imparted.\u00a0 And without fail, those who cared for David approached him with deep respect and genuine gratitude for the chance to be with him. \u00a0Not so different from all of you. It is not an overstatement to say that David reshaped the understanding all his doctors and nurses have of their true mission: not just tending of a body but safekeeping of the soul in their care.<\/span><\/p>\n

I will not say that David transcended the limitations that cancer imposed on him.\u00a0 David was never romantic about cancer or all that it took from him.\u00a0 He knew all too well the cost it extracted. I think it is more fair to say that with full knowledge and appreciation of what was NOT, David chose to love his life, \u00a0and live fully into his own humanity, without\u00a0 diminishment or apology for it\u2019s worth.\u00a0 And in doing so, I like to believe that he gave each of us the permission to feel the same way about ourselves, with all our own imperfections and disappointments, large and small.<\/span><\/p>\n

At the core of what made it all worthwhile for David was his love for Jackie, Jules, Sogna, Marge.\u00a0 They were the universe in which all that was whole and vibrant in David flourished and took space every day, and where the losses were of little more significance than missing eyebrows, low blood counts or hair that came and went.\u00a0 Noted, and surely missed, but never defining David or who he was as a father, brother, friend, husband or person.\u00a0\u00a0 For all the stories that can be told of David and the uncharted territories his journey took him on, that those of us here in this room could never fathom or believe ourselves capable of, the story at the heart of it all is a love story that never ceased to delight.<\/span><\/p>\n

Speaking for my colleagues at UCLA Health, thank you for sharing your David, our David, with all of us.\u00a0\u00a0 We will miss him with you; and sorrow and delight in remembering him always.<\/span><\/p>\n

(Speech on November 15th David Wong Louie’s Memorial at UCLA Royce Hall)<\/p>\n

Author: Kauser Ahmed, PhD<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Clinical Psychologist<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Director, Simms\/Mann \u2013 UCLA Center for Integrative Oncology<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Darcie Denkert Notkin Director of Psychosocial Oncology Care<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kauser Ahmed (Middle) with David Wong...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20327,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-ca-local"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20324"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20324\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20328,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20324\/revisions\/20328"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}