A Doctor in the House: My Life with Ben Carson - Hardcover

Carson, Candy

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1595231242 ISBN 13: 9781595231246

Publisher: Sentinel, 2016

Synopsis

 “The life of a neurosurgeon isn’t an easy one, and Ben has been required to go above and beyond the call of duty almost constantly. The life of a neu­rosurgeon’s wife isn’t much easier. But it’s all been worth it. Together, we’ve been through poverty, tragedy, wealth, and joy, and we’ve had each other’s backs. I love that guy!” —CANDY CARSON
 
Like most Americans, you might think of Ben Carson as a trailblazing brain surgeon and, in the last few years, as an outspoken commentator on national is­sues. But his wife of more than forty years knows him as so much more: a loving husband, a devoted father, a devout Christian, a committed philanthropist, and a fierce patriot. Now Candy Carson introduces us to the private side of a very public figure as she shares the inspiring story of their marriage and their family.
 
Like her husband, Candy grew up in Detroit, one of five children of a teacher and a factory worker. Also like Ben, she overcame her humble background through determination, hard work, and perseverance, earning a scholarship to attend Yale University. In that strange new world she focused on her studies, her music, and her deepening spiritual life. She attended church with a handsome older student who liked to tease her, but never assumed he would be anything more than a friend to her. But Ben and Candy quickly became inseparable, and they married soon after she graduated, with Ben still in medical school, preparing for his career as a soon-to-be world-famous pediatric neurosurgeon.
 
In A Doctor in the House, Candy reveals many sto­ries that have never been told before, despite the media spotlight on Dr. Carson in recent years. She shows us what it was like when they moved to Baltimore to join the community centered around Johns Hopkins Hos­pital. She describes how their family evolved with the births of their three sons and the tragic miscarriage of their twins. She talks about the challenges of Ben’s twelve- to twenty-hour workdays, saving thousands of lives every year while Candy ran the household.
 
She also addresses the prejudice they sometimes faced as African Americans, and how Ben’s calm, levelheaded approach made him a great problem solver at home and in their travels, just as he was in the operating room.
 
Above all, she reveals her husband’s consistency as a believer: in God, in family, and in America. Having lived the American Dream, Ben believes every child from every background is capable of achieving it. That’s why he and Candy have been committed to educating and inspiring young people and over the past twenty years have awarded more than 6,700 students with scholarships through their Carson Scholars Fund.
 
A Doctor in the House is a classic American love story—and that story is far from over. As Candy writes, “We don’t know what God has for us next, but we’re ready to follow. . . . As we head forward into the un-known once more, I thank God for putting us together."

About this title

About the Author:

CANDY CARSON is the New York Times best­selling coauthor of America the Beautiful; One Nation; One Vote; and A More Perfect Union, all written with her husband, Dr. Ben Carson. She is a graduate of Yale, has an MBA from Johns Hopkins, and is a cofounder of the Carson Scholars Fund. A talented musician, she has arranged and conducted for several groups, including the University of Maryland Medical Center Chamber Players. She and Dr. Carson now live in Florida and have three adult sons, three daughters-in-law, and two beautiful granddaughters.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

Introduction

“Wake up! Ben! Ben! Wake uhhh . . .”

Horrific pain shot through my midsection, abruptly silencing my frantic cries. It radiated to the extremities of my thirty-nine-week-pregnant body as I tried to breathe. It was two a.m., and Ben, coming off another rough week, was sleeping deeply and not responding to my desperate pleas. Prior to this particular night, I had found it amusing that he could wake from a sound sleep at a single ring of the telephone or beep of a beeper, but with any other sound, even when our first baby son would cry, Ben would be the one sleeping like a baby! He called it “selective hearing for medical survival.” I’m not sure I believed him, but it sounded good.

Only it didn’t sound so good as the pain started up again. The contractions were unexpected because I still had one more week to go and the first baby had taken a full forty weeks. Yet here I was in the midst of what I knew had to be labor, and because the contractions were just under two minutes apart, I was thinking this was, to put it mildly, not good!

On the next break from the pain, I managed to make my way to the bathroom, getting there just before another contraction hit. Calling out from the well-lit bathroom to the still-darkened bedroom, the message finally reached Ben’s subconscious.

Once awake, Ben went into doctor mode, though he didn’t yet realize how advanced my labor was. “Are you sure the baby’s coming? How close are the contractions? When did they start?” he called from the bedroom. Still trying to catch my breath, I couldn’t answer right away, but thank God for Lamaze! The breathing rehearsals from those classes kicked in and did their job! When I had breath enough to answer, I realized that not only was the baby coming, he was actually here!

“Honey, I think you better check,” I replied. And sure enough, little BJ was there. Ben dashed into the bathroom just in time to catch BJ before he fully emerged, holding the baby in one hand while he caught the afterbirth in the other. The emergency was not over yet, though, because the umbilical cord needed to be clamped. Ben literally had his hands full, so he told me to find something to clip off the placenta.

Considering I had just given birth, this might be considered a bit much to ask, but it had to be done, because the placenta contained the baby’s wastes, and it would be unhealthy for that to flow back to the baby. Fortunately, since the labor had taken less than an hour I was able to move around without too much difficulty. I ran up and down stairs looking for anything that might work, peering into drawers, checking on shelves, using my imagination to conjure up an answer to the problem as I searched the entire house, along with Ben’s mother, who was staying with us to help. Ben was calling out potential solutions, suggesting clothespins and other items—but I knew there weren’t any clothespins in the house, because we had a clothes dryer even back then.

Suddenly, rummaging through a drawer, I found a roller clip, the kind that is shaped like a bobby pin, only with straight shafts. I ran back up the stairs to where Ben had the baby, and he clipped off the umbilical, gave a sigh of relief, and must have cleaned the baby up. I don’t know exactly what happened next, because by that time the fire department had come and I had to answer the door. The startled firemen instructed me to take my place on the stretcher. I politely told them I’d been up and down the stairs several times and really didn’t need one. “I can walk just fine,” I said. They countered with “This is ‘procedure,’ ma’am,” but they finally offered an alternative: a seated stretcher, much like a sedan chair that carries royalty in the old films. It was great fun being carried around like a movie star!

In one sense, BJ’s birth is the story of our life in a nutshell. From the day I met Ben, he has come through for me in difficult situations. The life of a neurosurgeon isn’t an easy one, and like others he has been called to go above and beyond the call of duty almost constantly. The life of a neurosurgeon’s wife isn’t much easier, and I’ve had to put up with challenges that most wives don’t face. But it’s all been worth it. Together, we’ve been through poverty, tragedy, disappointments, joy, successes, and wealth. Even when things have been hard, we’ve had each other’s backs. I can’t help but admire and cherish a man who always puts others first. I love this guy.

Chapter 1

College and Meeting Ben

When I left home after high school graduation, the anticipation of new learning experiences thrummed through my veins. The excitement of going off to college, of being on my own, thrilled me. What freedom to make decisions all on my own, what power, answering only to myself! But it was a bit scary, too, no longer having the immediate gentle counsel of my parents! What if I made a mistake?

 · · · 

I had no plans to marry a doctor when I headed off to college. As a kid from inner-city Detroit, I had stayed pretty close to the neighborhood I’d grown up in before going to New Haven. When I first arrived on Yale’s campus in the fall of 1971, I was amazed, astonished, filled with wide-eyed wonder. I dutifully read all the handouts for new students to make sure I was up on things and had an understanding of what was required, but the sheer magnitude of this adventure was somewhat mind-boggling! But I kept my astonishment to myself. As a freshman, I wanted to act cool, like this was everyday stuff.

It wasn’t that my parents hadn’t tried to give me a breadth of experience, but we were from a pretty humble background. The daughter of a Floridian physician and nurse, my mother was orphaned at age twelve and was raised by her great-uncle and -aunt in Detroit. She had finished high school at fifteen and started college right away, becoming a teacher and later marrying my father, who worked in an automobile factory in Detroit.

Born Lacena Rustin, I was the third of my parents’ five children. Linzy was the oldest, followed by Cerise, then came me, and Del was the youngest. I arrived at a time when my mother was working to provide a stable home life for her family. My father was an alcoholic, something Mom wasn’t aware of when they married, because during their dating period she saw him only when he was on leave from the army and he was on his best behavior. Dad’s addiction forced him to drop out of pharmacy school, but by the time I was two years old, he had realized how destructive alcohol was and joined Alcoholics Anonymous. We hosted AA meetings at our home regularly and Dad never took another drink.

When I was three, my baby sister, Sinena, a year younger than Del, died in a fire, a tragedy that must have really shaken my parents, but my childhood was pleasant despite the tragedy, and the addiction issue had been resolved by the time I might have noticed. Dad was a family man who didn’t mind playing with us and made us kids all feel special. He would hold our hands as we attended parent/teacher conferences while Mom was involved in her own at her school. And Dad was a great cook. He could take chicken and make it so tender and flavorful it would make you cry for mercy. Best of all, Dad was my hero for sneaking me candy. Mom didn’t like us having too much, but Dad would provide me with treats from time to time because he knew how much I liked them. He started calling me his “candy,” and the name stuck.

The sweet tooth that earned me my nickname didn’t change. From the time I was about eleven on, as one of our chores, my sister Cerise and I would take turns baking cakes for the AA meetings. I liked baking but didn’t appreciate my mother’s rule that we couldn’t eat the fruits of our labors. I realize now, and probably knew subconsciously back then, that she only had my best interests at heart as I was a chubby kid. But it just didn’t seem fair that we had to go through all that work baking from scratch and mixing the icing from powdered sugar and butter and not even getting a little taste. We were obedient kids, though, and the rules ruled.

In fact, Cerise was always willing to do whatever helped to keep the peace. I recall one time when we were being babysat at the home of some of our parents’ friends, and the lady of the house required that we go to bed by seven p.m. Cerise wasn’t my senior by much, but she was allowed to stay up a whole extra hour later than our little brother, Del, and me. The injustice of having to go to bed an hour earlier than our sister (when we usually all went to bed at the same time) seemed so unfair. And because we were allowed to watch television, something that was a very limited treat at home, it simply didn’t seem right that Cerise should have an extra hour to watch while we didn’t. Del and I of course protested our bedtime quite vigorously, but our hostess was firm in her decision. So Cerise, with her giving, sacrificial spirit, said she would go to bed at the same time as we did even though she could have watched TV an hour longer. That attitude was typical of her and she has been a terrific role model for me as well as a great best friend.

Mom was very practical and organized things so that no one person in the family had too much to do. We divided up chores, taking turns preparing Dad’s morning coffee the night before by filling the water reservoir and inserting the filter with the required amount of coffee grounds, so that all he had to do was plug it in once he came into the kitchen. We helped Mom with her classroom bulletin boards, setting up her classroom at the beginning of the year and moving out at the end of the year. We even helped her with grading math and science papers from the time we were in upper elementary school.

As a result of her efforts, my first paycheck came from the Detroit Board of Education. Mom had needed someone to sketch historical figures on mimeograph sheets so that she could reproduce them for her class—photocopiers weren’t yet widely used. Because I had taken art classes, Mom got me hired. It was cool to be paid for something I enjoyed doing, and really exciting to know I had earned my own money. I quickly envisioned spending sprees. But my mother gave me another vision—a reality check—and informed me that the money would go toward college.

Chores were shared, and once they were done we could take advantage of the many freebies available in the city. Mom felt she had missed out as a child and was committed to introducing us to as many experiences to broaden our horizons as possible, as long as they were free or close to it. The neighborhood recreation center was one of our “hot spots,” and it was there that my sister and I took ballet and tap dancing, and I learned leather craft.

Football games were free because we lived behind the high school. Dad would park Betsy the car—a big black Buick hardtop—under the cherry tree in our backyard, and we kids would sit on top and watch the end of the field that we could see. The rest of the field was hidden behind the bleachers, but we didn’t care. Sometimes we’d even have popcorn. And Dad always let us name our cars. The last one was a Mercury we bought in 1965 which was so sleek, we called it “Hot 25.”

Although Mom’s primary source of income was from teaching, she also was our church organist, and as such required that each of us learn piano and at least one other instrument. Dad even played piano some too. And she made sure we were kept busy with orchestras. At one point in high school she was driving me to rehearsals for three different orchestras besides the two that I played in at my school.

With my mother being a teacher, of course bad grades just were not acceptable. Our parents set the bar high and we had to get the best grades. We practically lived at the library, we visited there so often. And as a teacher, she also helped us to understand that “teachers are people too.” On Valentine’s Day, Christmas, and other holidays, while most kids would make cards for their friends, we made cards for the teachers and administrators because they might be left out.

Mom and Dad believed in service as well. Every Sunday, when Dad would make coffee for early service at church, he had us take turns measuring the coffee grounds, because he wanted us to learn to help out in the church. We also helped with other church functions like pancake suppers and Vacation Bible School. From the time we were young, Mom would volunteer herself and us for programs around the city and get us in free, and sometimes we could take home extras of the treats that had been distributed to guests at special programs. Because we all played instruments, she would take us to nursing homes and play for the residents there. Later on after Dad succumbed to cancer, Mom even became the chaplain at several nursing homes.

Because Mom taught science and math, we all had some interest in those subjects and some experience with grading papers in them. As a result, it was sort of natural for me to choose premed as a focus for my college studies, though I wasn’t committed to a medical career. By the time I got accepted to Yale, I was simply tired of people asking me what I was going to do. In high school everyone takes the basics, but there’s not much opportunity to try a lot of different things. That’s what college is for; with so many classes in so many disciplines, students can explore various subjects to determine where their talents really lie. So I figured if people asked about my major, I’d just respond “premed,” and go on about my business. I wouldn’t be stuck trying to explain, “Well, I haven’t quite decided yet,” or “I haven’t found my niche yet,” or “I can’t make up my mind.” And I liked science anyway, so I started out with science courses, which turned out to be quite a bit of fun, by the way.

The Wonders of New Haven

Yale itself was a huge adjustment. On the college campus were gorgeous architectural styles of periods I had only seen in books. Exotic foods were the norm. Or perhaps I should say, expensive foods that we had never even read about, like London broil and Cornish hens. This was a stark contrast to the frozen bags of mixed vegetables that were a staple in our household. Because both my parents worked, they were usually exhausted when they got home and the meals were quick, easy fixes, for time at home was limited, but on weekends Dad treated us with his specialties.

College was a “land of wonder” I had to take in, and I tried to get over the amazement of it quickly so I could apply myself to the job at hand: studying. Sterling Library was another architectural wonder, packed with books of all shapes, sizes, subjects, and interesting covers and bindings. Some were done in leather with brass clasps, others had metal corners on tooled, embossed leather covers. I recall having difficulty concentrating while attempting to study in the stacks, as I would discover even more of these uniquely designed book covers.

In the dining halls, we folks from the ghettos of America found it was wise to listen first to the conversations around the table before saying anything. We wanted to find out what was the prevailing attitude of those who had been more privileged growing up, so we could fi...

About this edition

• Publisher: Sentinel
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1595231242
• ISBN 13: 9781595231246
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 224