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Diagnosis saved 'incorrigible' student
By Rod Ohira
Advertiser Staff Writer
Mary Groda-Lewis could not recognize and comprehend written words until she was 16 and her dyslexia was diagnosed.
By then, she had been labeled incorrigible and sent to reform school in Oregon.
"One of my counselors in reformatory told me, 'Mary, you're not stupid, you're creative and clever,' and sent me to a professional (who made the diagnosis)," said Groda-Lewis, who overcame the condition to become a family physician. Since October, she has been working at Wahiawa General Hospital's family clinic in Mililani.
Groda-Lewis' story inspired the 1985 CBS television movie "Love Mary," which starred Kristy McNichol, and has been featured in People magazine, Reader's Digest and Chicken Soup for the Soul.
Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser
Once the dyslexia was diagnosed, Groda-Lewis was able to turn her life around. She learned to read, and with newfound self-esteem earned her high school equivalency degree at age 18 as Oregon's most outstanding Upward Bound student. She graduated from a community college in Oregon and fought past 15 medical school rejections to get her degree from Albany Medical College in 1984.
Dr. Mary Groda-Lewis had trouble learning as a child and was sent to reform school, where she was diagnosed with dyslexia and began to turn her life around. Today, she is a family doctor at Wahiawa General Hospital's family clinic in Mililani.
It was someone finally taking interest in what was causing her learning problems that led to the turnaround, said Groda-Lewis, who grew up thinking she was stupid.
Dyslexia is a neurological disorder that hinders the learning of literacy skills. The cause is unknown, but it runs in families, according to the Dyslexia Institute.
"I thought I was stupid, but felt I was clever," Groda-Lewis said. "I had developed mechanisms to avoid people knowing how stupid I was. Once we had a big writing assignment to do, so
I had my next-door neighbor break my fingers so I wouldn't be able to do it. My thoughts were drawn from what I was seeing rather than what I should have been learning from reading.
"Whenever you're working with children that have problems, you've got to
listen to each child," Groda-Lewis said. "But how many times do we listen? The best teacher I ever had was for biology (in reform school). He knew something was not right with me, so he asked me to draw everything out."
The biology teacher's and counselor's perceptions were unique experiences that made all the difference for one troubled student. It meant a lot to her, she said. "As a doctor, I make sure everyone I see understands what I'm talking about," she said.
"I literally draw a picture for them."
Groda-Lewis believes students with undiagnosed dyslexia are too often classified as attentive deficient/behavioral disorders and given prescriptions of Ritalin. "We as a society find it easier to snow somebody with medicine instead of finding out why they're depressed," she said, noting that Albert Einstein was dyslexic.
People with dyslexia do not see written words or numbers the same way, Groda-Lewis said.
"I try to block out one eye now so I don't have visual block when I read," she said. "When I was having trouble reading, I was seeing some things upside-down. As a child you don't know that you're seeing things differently from everyone else. I could look at the letters ABC and see the (first two letters) like everyone else. But the 'c' for me would be inverted.
"It took a long time to go from the way I see it to the way everyone else sees it."
Groda-Lewis has written a book, "Strokes of the Soul," which she hopes to have published. It is not an autobiography, but "medicine from a perspective" of where she has come from, Groda-Lewis said.
"Modern medicine has become so technical. We have major machines to show us the minute strokes of the brain. But we have nothing to show strokes of the soul, and it's the strokes of the soul that we need to pay more attention to.
"I have no hesitation to hug, hold hands or sit quietly with (my patients)," Groda-Lewis said. "I was working in ER once when a woman brought in her 15-month-old child who had liver tumors. The child was really sick. I was admitting the child for another doctor when the mother left the room and went outside to take a break.
"I went outside, put my arms around her and said, 'It must be hard for you to go through this.' She told me later it was the first time a doctor had ever acknowledged what she, too, was going through. What I needed to say to people in the book is have an open mind and heart and explore the most intense gift you have, which is life."
Groda-Lewis moved from Twin Falls, Idaho, to Hawai'i "to learn more about cultural differences and uniqueness of nationalities that I wasn't getting on the Mainland."
"I also wanted to bring to the people here a different perspective of heath care," she said. "Mililani gives me the opportunity to do it."
Reach Rod Ohira at 535-8181 or rohira@honoluluadvertiser.com.
