The Doctor Who Kept Looking
By Al Timberlane — Good Morning Ozark Journal
Part Two of Four: The Heart of Medicine Is the Patient
Lori T. and Andrew at graduation. Photograph shared by Al Timberlane. Select to view full size.
Lori T. by a stone wall. Photograph shared by Al Timberlane. Select to view full size.
Good morning, everybody. I’m Al Timberlane.
When I interview musicians, I often ask about their first instrument.
Before long, a grandfather enters the story. A grandmother. A neighbor who taught a few chords. Someone who remembered a song and passed it along.
Medicine has its own passing of knowledge. But who preserves what was learned about one particular patient?
My father told me that our doctor lived behind us when I was born. Dad ran across the field to get him when my mother went into labor. By the time they returned, I had already arrived.
That physician became my childhood doctor. He knew me as I grew. When I needed my tonsils removed, he was there.
I remember the reassurance of having someone who knew my history.
Years later, after our family moved from Indiana to Tennessee, Dr. Grabenstein Sr. became Lori’s physician. His wife, also Dr. Grabenstein, was my doctor.
For about five years, as our family remembers it, he worked to understand Lori’s difficulty keeping food and liquids down, her dehydration, and her weakness.
He kept looking.
We remember oral medicines that would not stay down. We remember frightening falls. We remember some gastric-emptying tests returning normal results even while her difficulties continued.
Our family recalls that he diagnosed gastroparesis and sought help from specialists as questions remained. We remember evaluations involving children’s hospitals, infectious-disease physicians, Mayo Clinic, and Vanderbilt.
At Vanderbilt, our family recalls a stay of more than a week and confirmation of neurofibromatosis type 1—NF1. We remember genetics consultations, findings involving her eyes, and questions about whether her condition might help explain more of what she was experiencing.
We also remember discussions about microscopic abnormalities involving the nerves that coordinate digestion. The exact findings need clarification, but those conversations remain part of the history we bring.
There is published research relevant to that question. A 2025 Mayo Clinic study documented digestive movement disorders—including delayed stomach emptying—in some people with NF1. In a few surgically removed tissue specimens, researchers found abnormalities involving the gut’s nerve networks. That does not establish the cause of Lori’s symptoms; it gives substance to a question worth considering in her assessment.
Dr. Grabenstein did not have every answer. What our family remembers is his willingness to seek them.
I picture him helping connect a wheel: Lori at the center, with specialists contributing different kinds of knowledge.
Years pass. Doctors retire, move, or die. Their patients continue living with the conditions they investigated.
An old record can help recover that work. So can a conversation with an earlier caregiver. So can listening carefully to the person who lived through it.
We should work to recover missing information while assessing what the patient needs now.
The patient in the chair deserves the care.
And the question follows us into every new chapter:
What matters most? A name on a wall, or the patient in the bed?
— Al Timberlane
Explore the four-part series: The Heart of Medicine Is the Patient
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