Traction in the Rain with Sue Wheaton, MD
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What is the premise of Sue Wheaton’s “Traction in the Rain” story?
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You're listening to the Nocturneist, stories from the world of medicine. I'm Emily Silverman. In today's story, pathologist Sue Wheaton shares a captivating story about her mother, a woman who broke the mold not only as a surgeon, but as a race car driver. In the story, Sue brings us on an adventure from her childhood, where she served as her mother's co-pilot during a road race. As a result, we gain a window into a complicated relationship between. Mother and daughter, and the evolving legacy of a parent who maybe wasn't the warmest, but was definitely one of the coolest. Sue is a pathologist in Minneapolis and has been a partner with Hospital Pathology Associates for 26 years. She graduated from Rush Medical College in 1991, followed by a residency at Northwestern and a fellowship in hematopathology at the University of Utah.
Let's take a listen to Sue's story, Traction in the Rain.
It takes me about uh seventeen minutes to drive home from the hospital, and it is not infrequent that I call my mom and download my entire day, sometimes without even taking a breath. I tell her everything. I tell her about the new mom that I diagnosed with leukemia and how heartbreaking that was. I tell her, hey mom, we can finally quit wearing masks at work. And this particular day I tell her about this horrendous autopsy I had. It was a patient with toxic megacolon. He comes into the hospital and he perforates his bowel. They have ordered the autopsy to document the perforation, and I'm thinking, really? Isn't that what imaging studies are for? That whole, oh, there's free air in the abdomen, they should be able to figure it out themselves.
But uh they obviously need me, and I'm thinking it doesn't take a rocket scientist to document a bowel. All you have to do is open the abdomen, and there was literally shit everywhere. I am disgusted. It stinks. I'm talking to my mom and I'm going on and on and on about how gross it is and how much I hate the bowel. And she says, Oh I love the bowel. And I said, Oh yeah, that's right, mom, you do love the bowel. When you are a surgery resident, you would always wait till the end of the case so that you could look at and examine the bowel. And we will always as a mother daughter unit disagree on the bowel. Strand. Now the conversation turns on to bladder infections and inserting catheters, and I finally confess that I could never draw blood, and that is probably a pretty good thing that in the middle of medical school I realized that I hate to touch patients.
There are so many reasons I'm a pathologist. Now I'm finally getting uh ready to get home and I realize I should probably get in a few minutes about her. So I say, Hey mom, what have you been up to? And she says, sewing and knitting and I say, Okay, great, that's sewing and knitting, that sounds good. What else? And she doesn't say anything. And she usually says stuff like, Oh, we found a new diner and they have the best waffles or oh I just uh saw the funniest movie. But she doesn't say anything, so I ask again, what else? And then she doesn't say anything. And this isn't normal. And so I start to worry. And instead of going into the house, I turn off the car and I sit on the phone with my mom because something doesn't sound right.
Now, when I was a little girl and people would ask me, you know, in school they would always say, Write something about your parents. So I would write down that my mom is a doctor. And the teacher would always say, Oh, you mean a nurse? And I say, No, no, no. I mean a doctor. And then I would qualify that and say, No, actually I mean a surgeon. My mom's a surgeon. Well I get it. I mean there weren't a lot of female doctors in the sixties.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the premise of Sue Wheaton’s “Traction in the Rain” story?
0:00–5:35
2
How did Sue’s childhood experience as a race‑car co‑pilot shape her relationship with her mother?
5:35–8:36
3
Why does Sue compare her daily hospital calls to “downloading” her day for her mom?
8:36–14:54
4
What triggers Sue’s concern when her mother’s answers become unusually brief?
14:54–22:43
5
How does the conversation about car tires and rain become a metaphor for aging and mental health?
22:43–30:20
6
What led Mom to renew her driver’s license and how did that change their connection?
30:20–35:30
7
How did Sue’s mother’s new romance and renewed sense of purpose affect Sue’s view of caregiving?
35:30–40:03
8
What are Sue’s plans for storytelling and teaching after retiring from pathology?
40:03–41:15