52 Ancestors Week 17: Working for a Living

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 17:

The theme for Week 17 is “Working for a Living.” Our ancestors’ occupations can give real insight into their lives. This week, choose an ancestor and focus on how he or she made their livelihood. What did you discover about that person’s life?

BEEP! BEEEEEEEEEEEEP!!!!

    The jobs our ancestors had can really tell you a lot about them and you can unfortunately learn a lot about their jobs when you read through their medical journals at the tender age of eight. I can't tell you what an eye-opening experience that was. Let's just say I was brushing my teeth MORE than the recommended two times a day for like a month after reading my father's copy of the New England Journal of Medicine! Nine out of  ten dentists say you should stay away from medical journals. The tenth is being sued for malpractice.

    I've talked about my father the dentist in the blog before. He had his own practice in Salem for a little over fifty years and was very good at what he did. Of course I'll never forget the weird looks he gave me when I pulled out my own teeth in his operatory chair just moments before he was going to work on my teeth. They were loose! One good tongue flick popped it right out!

   While my father was working on peoples' teeth and making sure they flossed my mother was also a medical professional. She too had her own medical journals and yes they were also just as gory as my father's books. There's a reason why I never went into medicine. My mother was a lab supervisor at Merrimack Medical Labs in nearby Andover, Mass and the environment there was quite different from than the one my dad's office.

    Long before Diane Hamel worked at that lab she was first a graduate of Suffolk University where she studied laboratory medicine. She also interned in Hartford, Connecticut in 1970. She later worked as a Lab supervisor in Bayonne, New Jersey before she and my father moved back to New Hampshire.

    Once she and my father were back in the Granite State, she worked in the hospital and at Lawrence Medical and testing. 

    I think it's pretty clear by now that my mother was every bit a medical juggernaut as my father. What's interesting is that out of all of her siblings, she was the only one who went into medical school to pursue medicine as a profession. She has three sisters and two brothers and none of them every really followed in their father's footsteps and he was okay with that as long as they were happy.

    By the time I was born she was already working in a private laboratory in Lawrence and Salem, New Hampshire.  As a lab supervisor she counted blood cells and checked for various coagulation factors for patients and helped to diagnose medical conditions for doctors at area hospitals. Say a patient might have sickle cell anemia or any other blood-related illness. Her job was to examine blood cells for any irregularities and conduct other tests.

Goriest image in the blog ever.

    Every once in a blue moon I would join my mother at her office and it was a little bit more relaxed than my dad's place from time to time. It might be because my mother's boss, Phil, was very nice. He would often set me up with a microscope and I would check out blood cells for myself. I also got to see bacteria, paramecia and all kinds of microscopic organisms long before I ever learned about them in biology class. 

    Talk about getting a head start, right? Alas, medicine was never my thing. I understood it of course but I still had to turn my head whenever my mother took my blood at the dining room table. Yes, she did that! Not everyone is cut out to be a medical professional. We all have our own strengths and weaknesses. 

    All in all, I would say that my mother's job complimented my father's work as a dentist quite nicely if you think about it. As a dentist, my father made sure that peoples' oral health was in tip top shape. After all, poor oral health can lead to very unfortunate medical conditions. My mother and her fellow lab rats worked to make sure people were healthy all throughout the Merrimack valley. There was even a time when Merrimack Medical's services were definitely needed.

    In the early 2000s, I was a student at Merrimack College and there was unfortunately a small pandemic spreading among the student body. People were getting sick in their dorms. People were spreading whatever the illness was all over campus. If you're thinking this was a precursor to the Covid times, you would be right on the money.

    Her lab was called in to help diagnose the problem and come up with a solution as quickly as possible. I remember being tested when I got home. I commuted to college since it wasn't that far away. Thankfully. I never had the bug that went around campus. I did have to drink lots of water for days and we couldn't drink the water that was on campus. To this day we still don't know what caused the outbreak. Needless to say my mother was channeling her inner Doctor Crusher when she saw me and I was thankful that I didn't get sick.

    And that was how my mother earned a living. After the lab closed she went to work with my father at the office. She was already sort of working there whenever he needed help with a patient or if one of his staff members couldn't make it into work.

    I would say that she liked doing what she did for a living. She met some interesting people and maybe helped to save a life or two. Diagnosing a person's medical condition is never easy and to this day she still helps people whenever a problem arises. She was very good at what she did and let's not forget she did it while raising two boys. 

    I have to give my mother credit for that. It's not easy looking at microscopic organisms and seeing what damage they're doing to a human. You have to have a strong stomach to work with blood and sadly I do not have that talent. At least I've learned from both medical professionals. I may not be a doctor but I do play one on tv. 

See ya next time!