Bryson City Secrets: Even More Tales of a Small-Town Doctor in the Smoky Mountains [Hardcover]

Walt Larimore MD (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 14, 2006

More enchanting tales of the people and events that shaped a young doctor's life and faith during his early practice in the Smoky Mountains . . . There are places in Bryson City where the smell of home cooking is a little too tempting for an empty stomach. Don't, for instance, pass the Fryemont Inn when the windows are open---not unless you plan to come inside and enjoy fresh-baked rolls, gourmet cooking, and an owner who is as warm and inviting as the food. She's just one of the friendly faces you'll meet in Bryson City Secrets. Told with winsome humor and deep affection, Bryson City Secrets is a story-lover's delight, continuing Dr. Walt Larimore's reminiscences of his early years of country medical practice. So, pull up a chair and feast on this rich fare of Smoky Mountain personalities, highland wisdom, and all the tears, laughter, tenderness, faith, courage, and misadventures of small-town life.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Walt Larimore, MD, is one of America's best-known family physicians and has been listed in the Guide to America's Top Family Doctors and the Best Doctors in America. He has been a family physician for nearly thirty years, has written or cowritten over twenty books (including three Gold Medallion nominees), and has hosted nationally syndicated health features for radio and TV. He and his wife, Barb, have two grown children and live in Colorado Springs, Colorado. His website is www.DrWalt.com. SPANISH BIO: Walt Larimore, MD es uno de los medicos mas conocidos de America y se enumera en la Guide to America's Top Family Doctors, el Best Doctors in America y Who's Who in Medicine and Healthcare. Como un periodista medico, el Dr. Larimore es un vistante frequente sobre asuntos de la salud de la familia en muchas programas de television y radio, y ha aparecido en The Today Show, CBS This Morning, Fox News y CNN. Dr. Larimore ha publicado mas de 12 libros y mas de 500 articulos en muchos publicaciones medicos. El Web Site del Dr. Larimore es www.drwalt.com y el vive en Monument, Colorado.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Bryson City Secrets Copyright 2006 by Walt Larimore Requests for information should be addressed to: Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Larimore, Walter L. Bryson City secrets : even more tales of a small-town doctor in the Smoky Mountains / Walt Larimore. p. cm. ISBN-10: 0-310-26633-5 (hardcover) ISBN-13: 978-0-310-26633-4 (hardcover) 1. Larimore, Walter L. 2. Physicians --- North Carolina --- Bryson City --- Biography. 3. Medicine, Rural --- North Carolina --- Bryson City. I. Title. R154.L267A3 2005 610'.92 --- dc22 2005017451 This edition printed on acid-free paper. Some Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible: New International Version. NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. Some Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible: Today's New International VersionTM. Copyright 2001, 2005 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means --- electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other --- except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher. Published in association with the literary agency of Alive Communications, Inc., 7680 Goddard Street, Suite 200, Colorado Springs, CO 80920. Interior design by Michelle Espinoza Printed in the United States of America 06 07 08 09 10 11 * 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 We want to hear from you. Please send your comments about this book to us in care of [e-mail]. Thank you. chapter one BLOODY MESS Hey, Walt.' I recognized Rick's voice on the other end of the line. Rick Pyeritz and I were both family physicians and had practiced together for four years. Before moving to Bryson City in 1981, we had been family medicine residents together at Duke University Medical Center. 'What's up?' I asked him. 'I need some help, partner. I'm over in the ER sewing up a woman who stabbed herself several times. When the EMTs brought her in, she was hysterical, so I had to sedate her pretty heavily. Anyway, Don and Billy said she apparently murdered her husband in their home and then tried to do herself in. Since I'm going to be here awhile, would you be willing to go to the crime scene and do the medical examiner's report?' My heart began to beat a bit more quickly, as it always did when I received a call from the emergency room or a summons to the scene of a crime, and I suspected that the suspense of the unknown --- of the surprises one might find waiting --- would keep on giving me a sense of nervousness and trepidation every time a call came. Nevertheless, I tried to sound cool, calm, and collected. It's a skill doctors are taught early in their training. 'Be glad to help, Rick. Where's the house?' 'It's up a hollow just off Deep Creek. Don and Billy are taking the ambulance back over there. They say you can follow them.' 'Let me throw on some scrubs. Five minutes?' 'I'll have them wait in their unit at the end of your driveway.' 'Sounds good, Rick.' I hung up the phone and walked to our bedroom to put on my scrubs. I smiled as I looked at the bedroom furniture I had given to Barb, my wife, for our tenth wedding anniversary over a year earlier. Right out of medical school in Durham, North Carolina, we had moved to this quaint little house in this charming village with our then nearly three-year-old daughter, Kate. Bryson City is the county seat of Swain County, in the heart of the Great Smoky Mountains. The county is spread over 550 square miles, yet in 1985 it only had about 8,000 residents. Less than a thousand people lived in the town. The population was small because the federal government owned 86 percent of the land --- and much of it was wilderness. Since pathology-trained coroners lived only in the larger towns, the non-pathologist doctors in the rural areas often became certified as coroners. We were not expected to do autopsies --- only pathologists were trained to perform these --- but we were expected to perform all of the non-autopsy responsibilities required of a medical examiner. Having obtained my training as a coroner while still in training at Duke, I knew the basics of determining the time and suspected cause of death, gathering medical evidence, and filling out the copious triplicate forms required by the state authorities. Not long after receiving the fancy certificate of competence from the state of North Carolina, I was required to put my new forensic skills to work. Through the subsequent years as a medical examiner, the work had become more routine, but never boring. After putting on my scrubs, I left our house, which was located across the street from the Swain County General Hospital, and jumped into our aging Toyota Corolla. Billy was in the driver's seat of the ambulance as I pulled up to the end of the driveway. He smiled and waved as he gunned the accelerator and disappeared behind the hospital and down the backside of Hospital Hill. I had no idea what awaited me at the murder scene, and I tried not to think about it as I followed the Swain County ambulance. Because medical examiners were required to gather medical evidence for all deaths that occurred outside the hospital, during my first four years in practice I was called on as a coroner in dozens of cases. Nevertheless, I still found my stomach in knots whenever I approached the scene of a crime or unexpected death. After observing the scene, determining the cause of death was usually straightforward, at least from a medical perspective. But every instance continued to remind me of the finality of death, helping me realize again that death almost always comes unexpectedly, without warning or opportunity for preparation. An even more troublesome aspect of my work as an ME, at least when exploring a murder scene, is that it was an unnerving reminder of people's inhumanity to people --- of the intrinsic evil that can potentially bubble out of any person's heart, even in an idyllic town I had come to love and call home. I followed the ambulance up the narrow dirt road into a small mountain hollow. It was a typical winter day in the Smokies --- gray, overcast, damp, dreary, and cold. Most who visit the Smokies in the spring and fall revel in its temperate and lush glory. But most aren't aware of how stiflingly hot and steamy the summers can be --- and virtually none know how dismal a Smoky Mountain winter can be. This day would prove to be far more dismal than most. As we reached the end of the road, I saw several sheriff vehicles in a small field in front of a diminutive white farmhouse surrounded with bright yellow crime scene tape. After parking and hopping out of the cab, Billy walked over and extended his hand. 'Howdy, Doc.' 'Greetings, Billy.' As Don walked up from behind the ambulance I nodded at him. 'It's a mess in thar, Doc,' Don explained. 'What happened?' 'On first look, it seems the woman stabbed her husband. She used a big ole butcher knife. Pretty much got him straight in the heart, at least judgin' from all the blood on his chest and the floor. Then she turned the knife on herself.' 'Cut her wrists?' I asked, assuming a common method of suicide. 'Nope,' Billy responded. 'First she cut her arm a couple of times, and then she tried to stab herself in the chest a couple a times. When we got here, she was out like a light. Don't know if she fainted or was in shock. But her vitals were good. We got her stabilized and then transferred her up to the hospital.' We began to walk to the house. 'Was she

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Zondervan; 1 edition (February 14, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0310266335
• ISBN-13: 978-0310266334
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #621,498 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Walt Larimore. MD, is one of America's best-known family physicians and had been listed in the Best Doctors in America, Who's Who in Medicine and Healthcare, and the International Health Professionals of the Year. His MD degree is from Louisiana State University and his Family Medicine residency was at Duke.

Dr. Larimore practiced 4 years in the Smoky Mountains before moving to Central Florida to practice for 16 years. From 1993-1994 he served as the President of the Florida Academy of Family Physicians. In 1996, he was named America's Outstanding Family Medicine Educator by the American Academy of Family Physicians. In 2000, Dr. and Mrs. Larimore were named Educators of the Year by the Christian Medical Association.

In 2001 the Larimores relocated to Colorado where Dr. Larimore is now an author, educator, and medical journalist. He serves on the adjunct family medicine faculty of the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Denver and the In His Image Family Medicine Residency in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

From 1996 to 2001, Dr. Larimore hosted over 850 episodes of the daily, live Ask the Family Doctor show on Fox's Health Network--being awarded the prestigious "Gracie" Award by the American Women in Radio and Television. From 2002 to 2004, Dr. Larimore hosted the Focus on Your Family's Health's syndicated radio and TV features.

Dr. Larimore is a frequent guest about family health topics on a wide variety of television and radio programs and has appeared on The Today Show, CBS's Morning Show, several Fox News programs and CNN. He currently provides frequent medical commentary for radio stations in Chicago, Orlando, Baltimore, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Tampa, Albuquerque, and Ft. Wayne.

Dr. Larimore has published over twenty books and over 600 articles in dozens of medical, lay, and Internet publications. His best-selling books include "Bryson City Tales: Stories of a Doctor's Practice in the Smoky Mountains," "Bryson City Seasons: More Tales of a Doctors Practice in the Smoky Mountains," and "Alternative Medicine: The Christian Handbook."

His first book, co-written with his wife of 35 years, Barb, is "His Brain, Her Brain: How divinely designed differences can strengthen your marriage."

His first novel, co-written with Paul McCusker, "TSI: The Gabon Virus," and a revised version of his best-selling health book, "10 Essentials of Happy, Healthy People," are both to be released in 2009.

The second TSI book, "TSI: The Influenza Bomb," and his first solo novel in the "Hazel Creek Series" will be released in 2010.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The darker side of Bryson City, July 6, 2006

By 

Karen Potts (Lake Jackson, Texas) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Bryson City Secrets: Even More Tales of a Small-Town Doctor in the Smoky Mountains (Hardcover)

This is the third book of a trilogy by Dr. Walt Larimore who writes about his memories as a young husband, father, and doctor in the small town of Bryson City in the beautiful Smoky Mountains. As in the first two books, this one contains a lot of self-deprecating humor, such as when Dr. Larimore is coerced into being a bridesmaid in a "womanless wedding", a local fundraiser. There are humorous moments when Walt is called on to be a vet rather than a doctor, touching times of treating a blind man and his seeing-eye dog, and amazing incidents such as the first birth of triplets in the county. At the end, the story turns darker and the Larimores are faced with a difficult decision which they make through prayer and good advice from friends. This book and the other ones in the series are highly recommended reading.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Both enjoyable and inspirational, June 1, 2006

By 

FaithfulReader.com (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bryson City Secrets: Even More Tales of a Small-Town Doctor in the Smoky Mountains (Hardcover)

If you've followed the story of Dr. Walt Larimore's medical practice in the Smoky Mountains from BRYSON CITY TALES to BRYSON CITY SEASONS, you won't want to miss BRYSON CITY SECRETS. This latest installment continues Larimore's enjoyable stories of small-town rural medical practice, and explains why he and his family mysteriously left the small town they loved to move to another state.

In BRYSON CITY SEASONS, we left the Larimore family as they made the decision to leave the Smoky Mountains for a practice in Florida. Here, Larimore sets up his book well by leading off with a phone call from his 24-year-old daughter Kate, who has remembered a terrible incident from her past and wants to be reassured it was just a bad dream. There is just enough information for the reader to guess at what happened --- and what will be revealed in the coming chapters --- without giving it away until the end of the book. This keeps the pages turning, as the book opens with some of the usual Bryson tales.

And they are vintage Larimore: earthy, nostalgic, and often funny. The first three chapters find the doctor called to a murder scene, where a woman is suspected of brutally killing her husband with a butcher knife. Larimore, however, has his doubts when he examines the corpse and then the woman, who is hospitalized and unable to communicate. As the short story comes to its conclusion, he reflects on the darkness of all human hearts and the forgiveness available to everyone through Christ.

He's not Pollyannaish, however, but honest. "Frankly, even though I had prayed for the handyman the night of the crime, part of me didn't want to accept the premise that the Creator of the universe would and could love a murderer as much as he would love anyone else. Why wouldn't God want this man to suffer for the suffering he had inflicted and the life he had taken? Isn't there a certain amount of evil that cannot be forgiven -- that should not be forgiven?" This is a nice foreshadowing of the bigger event to come --- one that will challenge Larimore to forgive beyond what he may find possible.

There's plenty going on in Bryson City besides the occasional murder. Seven-year-old Tommy Shoap shows up in the emergency room near death, but his parents are reluctant to have much medical treatment given. They rely on herbal medicine and backwoods remedies, and don't put much stock in modern doctoring. Blind Dan McGill makes an appointment to see the doctor, but it turns out it's for his guide dog Samson, a golden retriever. He's hoping Larimore will give his pooch a checkup.

One thing that's enjoyable about the series is that Larimore is not afraid to be specific about some of the personal aspects of his cases. One humorous chapter deals with an 18-year-old who is married, pregnant and has a yeast infection. She tells him that she usually treats it with a backwoods remedy, yogurt douches, which work perfectly. However, when Larimore suggests the remedy to another female patient, she uses strawberry yogurt instead of plain yogurt, with interesting results. "One of the reasons they call my profession 'the practice of medicine' is that a doctor's education never ends," writes Larimore.

Although, as Larimore says, "death, despair, and disappointment are the unwelcome callers that come with every physician's battle with disorder and disease," what differentiates this book from his previous installments in the series is the dark backdrop of occult activity going on around Bryson City. The reader will feel the tension unfolding throughout the book right up until the climax, where we discover the "secret" that led Larimore to leave his practice. Readers may have differing opinions about how the difficult situation upon which the story turns was handled, but there's no doubt that Larimore is engagingly vulnerable about sharing what happened to his family with his readers. His willingness to share his family's "secret" may help some readers be more open about their own past "secrets" and find healing.

Just as in the previous books, the stories Larimore spins usually have a devotional-style ending, where a spiritual point is made. The way he sets up his chapters (usually each with its own short story, sometimes spread across a few short readings) makes this book easy to pick up and read short bits at a time. If you haven't read the first two Bryson City books, it's best to do so in order. You'll want to read all three.


--- Reviewed by Cindy Crosby. Contact Cindy at [e-mail].

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A bit dark, with a positive theme, April 27, 2006

By 

Christian Book Previews "Christian Book Previews" - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Bryson City Secrets: Even More Tales of a Small-Town Doctor in the Smoky Mountains (Hardcover)

"As I stood to go inside, a loud clap of thunder boomed across Bryson City. I looked over my shoulder. A storm was moving toward me faster than I could have imagined." With that bit of foreshadowing, so ends Bryson City Seasons, the second book in Walt Larimore's Bryson City trilogy. When Bryson City Secrets, the final book in the series, begins, that storm has long since passed, but a tearful, long distance phone call and a heartbreaking, if mysterious (to the reader) question from Kate, Larimore's now grown daughter, hints at the damage it left behind.

"`Can you have nightmares during the day?' Kate asks her dad. `Yes, I thought to myself, you can have a nightmare during the day. And another one had just begun for the Larimores.'" Coming at the end of the prologue, those ominous words, along with the title itself, presage the horror to come and establish the book's disquieting tone.

As did the previous two books, this one includes humorous stories, like those about the womanless wedding Larimore was coerced into participating in and the moonshiner and the "T-man" who end up as buddies in the same nursing home. But interspersed with these are more sinister ones about a handyman brutally murdering his employer; satanic rituals going on in the forest; a young, pregnant, woman giving birth while under demonic attack; and a little boy dying of cancer who talks to angels. As the book reaches its climax, it's clear that the serpent still lurks even in the idyllic, Eden-like setting of Bryson City, North Carolina.

But despite its dark undertones, the principle theme of Bryson City Secrets is a positive one, illustrating the truth of Romans 8:28, "that all things work together for good to them that love God." As Bryson City Secrets draws to a close and readers discover what the Larimores' "nightmare" is all about, they'll be confronted with the knowledge that no place is safe from the danger and evil that plague our world. At the same time, they'll be comforted with the knowledge that wherever danger and evil abide, so, too, do God's presence and His love. - Linda Whitlock, Christian Book Previews.com