I tried to prove my pediatrician wrong (and accidentally learned something else)

When I think about being afraid as a kid, my mind goes right to the back lot of Medina Hospital.

Not the emergency room side. The quieter part of the complex where a lot of the offices were. This was before the Cleveland Clinic name went up on the building. Back then, my mom would drive down Route 18 from the Medina Square and suddenly turn into that winding driveway toward the back. I knew exactly what was happening. And I wanted nothing to do with it.

Somewhere through those doors and up several flights of stairs was my pediatrician. And that meant a shot, or that weird strep throat stick that would choke me, or some medicine that tasted like my grandmother’s perfume. (That’s a different story.)

Without saying his name, I’ll just say this: my pediatrician was incredible.

And if he’s still around today, there’s a good chance I owe him an apology.

Because when I was a teenager, I once told him he didn’t know anything.

The argument started with a question that had been living in my head for months.

Am I going to get any taller?

I was heading into 10th grade. Five feet tall. Ninety pounds. A little crustache trying to appear on my face. And I’m sitting in a waiting room full of toddlers playing with those bead roller-coaster toys on the wall when he calls me back.

I climbed onto that crinkly paper exam table and asked the question straight out.

“Am I going to get any taller, Doc?” I asked.

He studied my chart for a moment and then said very calmly, “Based on your growth pattern, you’re probably topped out around 5 feet.”

Five feet?

In my teenage brain, that number started echoing around the room.

How would I ever get the other guys to respect me? How would I ever fit in? How would any girl ever like me?

Because in my warped mind, if I didn’t get taller, I wouldn’t matter.

So I slid off the exam table, pointed my finger at him and said, “You don’t know anything. And I’m gonna prove it!”

Then I walked out of the room like the case had just been settled.

The only problem was I had absolutely no idea how I was going to prove it.

Eventually I asked a kid on the wrestling team. He told me his older brother used to be short too, and then he shared the secret.

Eight chocolate milkshakes a day. All summer.

I convinced my mom to keep the freezer stocked with vanilla ice cream, whole milk and Hershey’s syrup. And every single day that summer I stood in the kitchen mixing giant milkshakes with a big silver spoon.

Eight of them.

Every day.

And somehow, I grew 7 inches.

For a while I was convinced I had cracked the code.

Chocolate milkshakes equal growth.

But here’s the part that took me years to understand.

Even after I got taller, I didn’t suddenly feel different. I had convinced myself that being taller would fill some kind of void. That once I grew, something inside would finally settle.

But it didn’t work like that.

I was just a little taller with the same teenage angst inside.

Eventually I learned that something deeper has to fill that space.

Sometimes I still think about that doctor. Mostly because I’m a little embarrassed about how I talked to him that day.

But the older I get, the more I realize something else too.

Even doctors. Even the learned folk we look to for answers.

They may be onto something, but none of us actually hold ultimate knowledge.

The best any of us can do, it seems, is keep trying to lean toward the light of truth, even as we fumble around searching for it.