"When Life Tripped you up"

“On average, we get 80 summers in this life… if we’re lucky. And yet, too many people put off the things that truly matter, waiting for the “right time” to live, to love, to chase dreams.

But here’s the truth—life doesn’t wait.

Stop waiting to take the trip.
Stop waiting to tell them how much they mean to you.
Stop waiting to chase the dream that sets your soul on fire.

Because one day, you’ll wake up and realize that the time you thought you had… is gone.”

Reflections from a Geriatric Physician

During my Geriatric Fellowship training, I learned that men tend to experience illness and decline earlier than women. Over the years, this observation has been confirmed by my clinical experience.

As a practicing geriatric physician, I care for many older adults, some well into their 90s, who remain remarkably healthy and independent. I often see individuals in their 80s living whole, engaged lives. Many 70-year-olds are vibrant and active in the community, serving in church leadership, civic roles, and even continuing to run businesses they started decades ago.

The past few years have been especially meaningful to me. I’ve become more socially open, and many of my older male patients now see me not just as their doctor but as a trusted friend. These relationships have extended beyond the office, and we’ve shared meals, conversations, and moments of vulnerability. We’ve discussed topics far beyond medicine. In many ways, these friendships are among the most rewarding parts of my career.

It was the kind of summer morning that makes you think nothing could go wrong. The air was cool and clear, with the breeze lazily swirling through the trees. I went through my routine on autopilot, calm, practiced, untouchable, until my foot caught on a blade of grass and I fell. Not a stone, not a root. Just a blade of grass.

I laughed it off. I had spent over twenty years shaping this body into a resilient vessel, guided by longevity science and fortified by a routine of IV vitamin C, with a skeletal frame as strong as steel in a suspension bridge. My musculoskeletal system was meant to withstand such fragile betrayals. I had promised myself and told my patients that a broken femur would never be part of my story.

But life has its anatomy. And sometimes it breaks you at the point you think is strongest.

Two days later, I awoke in a different body. The right leg refused me. Pain radiated like a flare from deep inside the bone. The fracture was in the neck of the femur, one of the most feared injuries of old age, and yet here it was, inside me, a man not yet sixty.

It started after an otherworldly sleep. Forty-eight hours of drifting in and out, surfacing only for water, sliding back into dreams so vivid they felt stolen from another life. When I finally woke for good, I stepped into a new reality; my body had shifted, my balance was gone, and the landscape of my life no longer felt familiar.

There was no logical explanation. Not with my bone density, InBody Scan, training, or my life’s work. This wasn’t science as I knew it. It was something else, something that demanded I stop, look, and listen. But the fracture forced something on me that I had not known I needed: time.

Because I’ve lived my life in a constant state of readiness, whether on fishing boats, in Malaysian camps, or through endless nights during my residency at Hopkins and my fellowship in geriatrics, strength was my currency, strength was my shield. Without it, you didn’t just stumble, you disappeared.

And in that enforced stillness, I thought of my fellowship years at Johns Hopkins, those rare months when I first learned what the "Gift of Time" really meant.

The Gift of Time

My role as a Geriatric Medicine Fellow during my training years had two main parts: to learn and to teach. Each rotation lasted about three months, during which I guided Internal Medicine residents in the art and science of caring for older patients. After each rotation, we had six weeks to focus on our research projects, providing time to think critically, write, and complete our work.

I reported directly to my mentor, Dr. William Greenough, then Chief of Geriatrics at Johns Hopkins. I loved every waking moment of that chapter in my life. Academia was my oxygen; every day was an intellectual challenge, surrounded by people I respected deeply. My mind was young, curious, and unburdened, free to roam in directions that only the safety of academic life allows.

I could close my eyes and see biochemistry. The Krebs Cycle spun in intricate detail; the Pentose Phosphate Pathway branched neatly off glycolysis at the enzyme G6PD. In my mind, these reactions weren’t just equations; they were a melody, biochemistry harmonizing with physics, ordered and beautiful. Philosophy threaded through it all, shaping how I saw life itself.

Every Friday, I had lunch with Dr. Greenough. He taught like Jesus did: through stories. And within those stories, I found valuable lessons about medicine and life. In many ways, he reminded me of Dr. Ben Carson, another man of faith whose presence impacted my journey. But it was Dr. Greenough who met the young Anthony Phan, still dealing with the challenges of medical training.

Training back then was brutal. In medical school, you were prepared for the gauntlet to come. Residency—the first half of training—was named for a reason: you lived in the hospital. My residency was in Internal Medicine with an ICU/Intensivist focus. I could have stopped there, stepping into a career as an ICU physician. But I chose a different path: a fellowship in Geriatric Medicine.

Life as a Fellow was a different world. The rotations were shorter, and the patient load was lighter. In residency, I might have 20–25 patients a day. As a Fellow, I had only two or three. And with that came something rare in modern medicine: the gift of time.

Time to know the patient. Time to listen, not just treat. Time to see the person, not just the diagnosis.

The Lesson of the Sixty-Year-Old

I once treated a man, sixty years old, who had broken his hip. "Life tripped me up," he told me, eyes holding both defeat and defiance. I understood him then as a physician. Now, I know him as a man standing on the threshold of something I cannot yet name.

What did that sixty-year-old man teach me? More than I realized at the time. We spoke often, long conversations that wandered between the clinical and the profoundly human. I remember him telling me that every man will face this trial eventually, whether in his sixties or seventies.

A trial by fire. A reckoning that forces you to ask, Why am I still here? A season when giving up becomes a reasonable, even justifiable choice.

He described living with daily physical pain, how even the simplest act of moving your body becomes a test of endurance. You lose control over functions that used to be automatic. When everyday activities like waking up, brushing your teeth, or walking to get a cup of coffee become monumental tasks, you realize you're on the ride of your life.

That patient is teaching me even more now. He showed me how to find the strength to continue, one day at a time, when your body betrays you. He also taught me about healing during what I now call the Super Acute Reactive Inflammatory Phase.

Spiritual Discernment and Identity Post-Trauma

When I entered the hospital for surgery, I was afraid. Not of death—I had already made peace with that possibility. I feared the loss of control. Would I be jabbed in the night with something I did not consent to? Would I be manipulated into taking medications I no longer believe in?

But God had already gone ahead of me. Jesus said in Acts 1:4 and Luke 24:49 that we would receive power from on high, the Holy Spirit, to guide us. And like always, Jesus did not fail. The Holy Spirit paved the way for my hospitalization. The physicians respected my views. The staff was kind. The system, though flawed, bent gently for me this time.

Still, struggle was written into my journey. During surgery, I had a seizure. My heart went into Atrial Fibrillation with Rapid Ventricular Response. I hovered on the edge of life. And in that moment, I was given a choice: life or death.

For the believer, death would have been easy. But I chose life.

Now, three and a half weeks later, I walk carefully, sometimes painfully. Yet I walk with purpose. Through this, I am learning what it means to heal both as a physician and as a patient. Having once viewed suffering through clinical detachment, I now experience it as a form of spiritual growth. As I face the challenges of my healing process, I realize this is a long journey that may not have a smooth or guaranteed ending, and that it is more than a broken femur. Most of my career as a physician has been marked by success, which I measured not in money or reputation but in the positive results my patients achieved—by God's grace—from my time in the ICU to my work in longevity medicine, involving peptides, exosomes, and stem cells. I have never faced a malpractice lawsuit or an unsuccessful outcome...until I started treating myself. It’s not multi-organ failure, but it is complex enough that I must thread the needle over the next three months and again in the following three months. I must be precise with every milestone, or I may not make it. That’s when God stepped in, or more precisely, when God has been in control—or at least, I have not acknowledged it until now. The world may try to respond with weakness, decline, or the loss of relevance, but in God's hands, the answer is transformation.

In Psalm 19:1, it says, "The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands." Biochemistry, the immune system, the very act of cellular repair—they all testify. And in this season, so do I.

I am healing. I am learning. I am not finished.

I am His.

AP