By Henry Ehrlich
In my role as what passes for a PR department here at asthmaallergieschildren.com world headquarters, I listened to Dr. Paul Ehrlich a week ago when he was a guest of Samantha Heller, registered dietician, exercise physiologist, health expert, and sunny radio personality on SiriusXM Doctor Radio. It was one of those moments that couldn’t be scripted, and if it had, it probably wouldn’t have been so heartwarming and compelling.
The last caller was “Leah* from California” who identified herself to Dr. Ehrlich as “Ben’s mother.” You could hear Paul’s confusion as he asked, “What are you doing in California?” Leah said she was on vacation with her husband. And her son? He was at camp. She said, more or less, “After all those years when you told him to take his medication with him and ask his own questions and explain things to people, he tells me to keep quiet and let him do it. He’s 17 now and really knows how to handle himself. I haven’t seen you in three years, but when I heard your voice, I just had to call and thank you.”
In our book, Paul and Larry say, “Over many years, we have seen time and time again in our practice that rather than allergy or asthma tethering a child and family to a limited existence, they can gain control over their life to a much greater extent and so widen the radius of activity.” This call from New York “Leah in California” was an object lesson in how this can happen in the real world. You could make this stuff up, but when it happens live and on the (satellite) air, it’s sweet.
PS—This week Gwen Smith, editor of Allergic Living Magazine welcomed Paul into the fold as a contributing blogger. You can read his inaugural post here. Allergic Living called our book “an expert resource” and named this website to its list of “sites we love.” We hereby return both compliments. Paul has also been cited in a number of their articles, including this one about bestselling author John Grisham.
*Note: not their real names.