Dr. Brian Krull, our guest on the morning show today.
He is a family medicine doctor and grateful that he was able to join us in the studio today.
First of all, Dr. Krull, maybe you could talk about your role at the hospital and what you do on a daily basis.
Yeah, thanks for having me.
My role, I'm a primary care doctor, so I see patients, what we call cradle to grave.
So newborns to the time of life where folks transition to
a better place and it's
I take that job very seriously and feel honored to be a part of people's lives for that long and really enjoy that part of my job.
I also help with sports physicals.
I help run a concussion clinic for athletes and anybody that suffers a concussion and do some musculoskeletal ultrasound as part of this Orion project.
has recently finished up in the last year.
I
know that concussions are in the news quite a bit, especially with former NFL players.
Our safety standards, have they improved a lot through the years?
Oh, definitely.
Definitely from my experience to now.
It's been a huge improvement, understanding, and especially our sideline management, and that it really has all the effort from the athletic trainers there.
We have
We're blessed at Richland Center and at IFICA to have two excellent athletic trainers, both Barry and Lindsay, do just an incredible job.
can recognize concussion, get them in to us if needed, but manage a return to play protocol to keep them from having a second hit and a second concussion.
And it's really good buy-in from coaching staff too.
That's been the biggest transition.
Just coaches want their athletes to be healthy first.
And it's really awesome to see you really want to protect athletes from themselves sometimes because they're tough and they want to get back on the field.
very, very gratifying and helpful to prevent them from, from worsening and getting back on the field actually sooner than they would have.
You bring up Brie and Lindsay.
And I think them being in the building, um, they develop those relationships with the students and there's a little trust there.
And, you know, and maybe they, they, I mean, they obviously trust their opinion very much
too.
Yeah, absolutely.
Um, I think they're, they're a constant and very fortunate to have them, um, very well trained.
Uh, they've got, uh, we have a good relationship at Rich.
hospital with them and have communication through text and through our electronic medical record.
But yeah, they make it, they make my job very easy.
Why did you pursue this this form of medicine and not go in a different direction?
Family medicine offers a unique blend of
child care through geriatric care and everything in between.
And you take care of every part of the body and mind, which is super interesting.
There's never a dull day.
You're learning constantly.
And then you can pick off your little niches that you enjoy doing most.
And sports medicine, being there for athletes, giving back to community through athletics and promoting an active lifestyle.
is super important to me.
So being able to do that in Richland Center has been fantastic.
What about joint pain and arthritis and those kind of things?
Pretty common, isn't
it?
Yeah, very common.
And I think when folks think about joint pain, they often think of osteoarthritis or some sort of arthritis that requires a joint replacement.
And we have an excellent orthopedic group here that takes care of a lot of those patients.
but there's a whole host of other ideologies or causes for this joint pain and some of those could be autoimmune or your body's
kind of attack on itself and not so much wear and tear.
And that takes a different set of management besides replacing the joints.
And so that's a particular interest just because it takes a long time to get into rheumatology from the tertiary centers we have, both Gunderson and Madison.
And so being able to provide a service here to address some of those issues.
for rheumatologic causes of joint pain has been very gratifying.
Some people will talk about the weather changing.
Does that have an effect on joint pain?
Anecdotally, yes, absolutely.
I think anybody who has arthritis can tell you and maybe you can hire one of them for your weather portion.
We need to.
Have an inside scoop.
Because they can tell when the storm's coming or whatever.
Absolutely.
I mean, I think there's definitely
something to it with pressure changes and when you have joint damage the the physics inside your joint is different and so you feel that pressure a little bit other than folks that have healthy joint.
Seasonally I mean this time of year maybe but I know we talk about the winter time and that seems like it's hard on everybody
right?
Yeah I mean I think when you when you hurt you don't want to move and the the paradox is with arthritis
Moving helps.
You just don't want to move.
too much or be pounding the joints too much.
So if you're going for exercise, going on a bike ride or uphill walking versus a jog would be better.
And so in the wintertime, people don't move as much and it's colder.
So they don't want to move as much and then they tend to be in more pain.
Usually then the summertime comes and they're a little bit less strong and when your muscles decondition, you struggle to
back to the activity that you're used to and that also produces more pain.
So it kind of becomes a vicious cycle in Wisconsin.
I often talk to my patients about trying to just maintain in the winter.
You don't have to do anything crazy or special but just don't decline because one of these times you won't be able to do what you want to do in the spring and then you get frustrated.
Come to the doctor and we work with you to help but it's a lot harder than just maintaining.
in the winter and avoiding that slump.
Yeah, that brings up an interesting point.
When I was having hip issues, it wasn't the hip that was sore.
It was the muscles around it.
Right.
Yeah.
Preserving strength is so key for everybody's well-being.
By age 30, you start losing muscle mass.
And so if you're not fighting against it, it's you're losing the battle.
And so any sort of resistance training beyond walking.
doing squats or lunges.
Any sort of resistance training to strengthen your quads and hamstrings and glutes will help the bigger joints, especially hips, knees, ankles.
transitioning from us older people to the younger people, you know, the million dollar question lots of times is athletes specializing in one sport.
And, you know, there's a lot of discussion about whether it's volleyball or basketball that you play year round.
You use the same muscles and that jarring effect.
Maybe you could talk about that a little bit in the effort that athletes have.
Maybe you need to do some other things once in a while.
Yeah, I mean, this is a can of worms, but I think there's really good data now on over specialization and the
the negative effects it has for an athlete.
And a lot of times, it's a complex decision because parents just want to provide the best opportunities for their kids.
I've got a two-year-old right now, so I'm not in the thick of travel, baseball, and travel sports.
But I can't imagine that.
the crux of the situation where the opportunity to play and travel ball is maybe your only opportunity or all your friends are doing it.
So how do you be the parent to say no?
Hey, maybe we should try other sports during these seasons.
especially if the ultimate goal is to go to the next level, or specialization too early, often leads to burnout, they stop having fun, chronic injuries, and they stop becoming an athlete.
And when you look around at any professional sport or any college athlete,
They're athletes.
You drop them into any sport and they can probably participate and be upper level.
And so specialization, once you get into high school and you're considering going to college and you made that choice, even into your sophomore or junior year, I think it's reasonable to spend a little bit more time.
You know, any sport is training is kind of cross training for a different sport.
It's important to stay active.
Uh, it's important to like what you do.
Um, and if you do that, you're going to go a long way,
especially the younger grades.
And I mean, you played football at the next level too, but I think by the time you're a sophomore, you know, you're kind of, people kind of know where you're headed.
You know, I mean, maybe that's the time you specialize before that, you know?
Yeah.
I mean, I think puberty is a giant differentiator.
I sometimes talk to to young kids about this is you know you're you're taking performance-ancing drugs when you're in puberty because you for the first time are experiencing hormones that are promoting muscle growth and and that you see that in
sports and young kids.
The kid that's gone through puberty is dominating because they have performance-enhancing drugs on board with natural testosterone and the other kids haven't had that happen to them yet.
So, you know, I don't think you can really judge somebody's true potential until they've gone through puberty and playing all sports, you're developing
hand-eye coordination, lateral strength, movement flexibility, being able to fail and overcome.
And all these are just lessons that is necessary versus over-specializing and being told you have to do it in this way.
And then you lose the fun.
That's the number one thing.
That's why they quit sports lots of times, isn't it?
As far as aches and pains, when should we come?
see you and when should we just kind of blow it off like oh this is just
aging.
Yeah, yeah, I think that's a common question.
And I mean, I think it's important one to I think have a good relationship with your primary care doctor, you know, an opportunity once a year to see them for just your general health maintenance, looking and making sure that you stay healthy from things that maybe you can't control cancer, inappropriate cancer screenings, making sure that your cholesterol and metabolism is fine.
You know,
talking about all these preventative services that most insurances cover at no cost to you.
It's also an opportunity then to have a conversation with your physician about, hey, I've been meaning to ask, I just haven't had the time to come in.
I've had these aches and pains.
Sometimes they're more serious than others.
rheumatoid arthritis is usually starts between the third and fifth decade of life so 30 and 30 to 50 and once you have joint damage it can
be permanent.
And so it's a younger population versus osteoarthritis, which is generally older.
And so especially if you have aches and pains that are more atypical or you don't even know if it's typical or not, I think that's the job of the doctor.
And fortunately, all the providers at Richland Hospital were obtained this training through the Orion program.
to have better access and teasing out?
Is this something that is a rheumatoid or autoimmune cause?
Or is this something that can be watched and other forms of treatment and be offered to improve those symptoms?
So just having a good established relationship with a primary care doctor often can prevent.
these things because it's just an opportunity for you to talk about what's ailing you.
And I know that every one of the providers at Richland Hospital are well-trained in that matter.
What about over-the-counter pain relievers?
I mean, because they help, but how much is too much,
right?
Yeah, that's a great question.
And there's kind of two categories of over-the-counter pain medicines.
One is a broad care category called
NSAIDs, non-steroidal, anti-inflammatories.
And those are the ibuprofins or Advil, naproxen or Aleve, Motrin, all these.
are what you generally reach for when you have an ache and pain.
They work really well.
They help with arthritis and decreasing the inflammation, which is what causes pain.
But if you take them every day for more than a week, generally you start causing some problems.
They will kind of hurt the kidneys.
could cause permanent kidney damage.
It can raise your blood pressure.
They can also cause a GI ulcer and bleeding in the belly.
And so they work really well and sometimes we're not able to use them because of those risk factors where you've had a heart attack and you're on a blood thinner.
But Tylenol is something that can be kind of taken with that guilt-free up to about 4,000 milligrams in a day.
And that's probably staggering to most people thinking, oh, I'm gonna take 4,000 milligrams, but that's safe to take.
Even with somebody that has liver disease, 3,000 milligrams is okay.
But that's a safe medicine to take.
Heat, movement, lidocaine patches, there's all these topicals that can help.
But I think getting moving is pretty critical to a lot of patients coming.
in with pain and and telling them they have to move is always a surprise because they're in pain and they don't want to move but that's a way to break the cycle because getting stiff often often makes it harder to move than just continuing to move.
Do you utilize altar sounds?
Yeah so so part of this that Orion program they
set up some training for me to do musculoskeletal ultrasound and I spent about nine days down at University of Wisconsin learning this and then several hours after went down to Florida earlier this year and spent three days at a conference learning musculoskeletal ultrasound and it's a diagnostic tool.
to look into the joint that's not an x-ray.
There's no radiation.
I can do it right in the office.
And most people think ultrasound, it's like, oh, it's an OB tool.
I'm looking at the baby's heart, or maybe you've had a blood clot or an echocardiogram.
It's the same technology.
It's just looking at the joint itself.
And the utility of it is you can, for some orthopedic conditions, even just...
run of the mill osteoarthritis if you're looking to put a needle in a joint to do an injection you can actually see the needle go into the joint and and so it's precision from from those simple procedures that that you can do without it but it just offers an extra form of precision along with
diagnosis for some of these autoimmune conditions that are tricky to diagnose.
Oftentimes the labs and blood work you do don't tell the whole story.
And when you can see the joint and if there's inflammation in the joint or evidence of certain signs in the joint, you can diagnose it without lab work.
And so having that
here and in and connections with UW I still talk with the folks that train me It helps kind of speed up the process of referral if needed and diagnosis and getting on early treatment Because most of the starting treatment we can prescribe here at Richland Hospital And so it's it's been a very gratifying way to
to kind of jump the line, so to speak, in the rheumatology referral.
I see my own patients for this as well as other providers who want me to see their patients.
And if you're interested, you can call Richland Hospital and ask for Dr. Kroll's musculoskeletal clinic or talk to your provider about it.
That's interesting because now as patients, we can utilize telehealth, but you as a physician,
You can kind of have that communication by video as well, can't you?
Yeah, absolutely.
I think video visits are a great way to expand.
you know, and offer a different service line to patients that can't come in, whether it's car trouble, it's too hot, it's too cold, it's hailing out.
And a lot of work can be done through video.
You are joining the staff officially for the original center football team, right?
Oh.
You helped last year, didn't you?
Yeah, yeah.
So me and Jay, we're both the defensive back coach last year, and Coach Troxel has been
to work with along with the rest of the coaching staff.
And it's been a lot of fun.
I've helped with some of the weightlifting this winter.
They've got a great program there that they offer for any high school athlete, not just football players.
So I always encourage my athletes and students who've never lifted weights to try to attend one of these programs because...
It's a free service that you get excellent training and education on because once you leave that becomes very expensive to get a personal trainer and once you leave high school you kind of lose.
the ability to just show up and have someone walk you through how to perform these and it's a lifelong skill that's so critical to preserve your health and wellness as you get older.
So I encourage any high score to really take advantage of that opportunity that is offered by Coach Troxel and some of the strength staff.
It helps you with regardless of what sport you're out for, doesn't it?
Life.
It helps you with life.
You know,
life's the sport.
I talked to a lot of my blue collar workers, farmers,
their professional athlete and in some sense they require their body to to be working and pain-free and strong to perform their job and you know you have to kind of prepare your body for that for the long haul and if you don't then
that's when injuries can come in and when you're relying on that for your livelihood can be pretty disconcerting when you have to take six weeks off to recover from an overuse injury or arthritis now is creeping its ugly head and and some of that could have been prevented.
I was surprised to see I looked it up not too long ago about the number one sport in terms of concussions and football isn't
number one.
What's number one?
Well, I believe it was soccer, you know, from the headers.
And then I think wrestling was another one.
Interesting.
Yeah, I looked this up recently, too.
And I had I had football, one button girl in women's sports, it was soccer.
And then wrestling and soccer were very similar.
But I mean, yeah, concussions beyond football are prevalent and recognizing that from a from a
patient standpoint from a parent standpoint and getting them in.
Go to the athletic trainer, talk to the coaching staff, talk to your primary care provider.
and we can get them in.
If you're going to urgent care, ask about the concussion clinic.
We try to prioritize our athletes to get them and work with the athletic trainers because it's hard to manage all of that with school and restrictions from an urgent care.
better from a primary care perspective.
Obviously, your student is going out for football original center that should feel safe.
You got a position on the sidelines.
You got Bre or Lindsay or whomever.
I mean, you've got good care right there.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, I football has so much to offer.
It's, it's, uh, I think, uh, a way to, to build mental toughness along with physical toughness, camaraderie, teamwork.
Um, and I think a lot of sports check those boxes.
Uh, you know, I, I, I'd encourage.
parents to consider sports as a second part of school, trying to get at least one sport in, whether that's golf, volleyball, soccer, football, baseball.
It doesn't have to be football, but encourage.
encourage all parents to push their kids to pick up one sport.
You have to pick one sport just to learn those skills.
Why do you like the community?
What do you love about going to work at the Richland Hospital?
I mean, everybody has a common goal.
We all live in the area.
We all chose this area because we have
common interests in wanting to practice great medicine for the population of kids to older adults that need it.
giving back to the community I think is a big part of all of our ethos there at the Richland Hospital, whether it's through coaching football or coaching the basketball team or being part of their church and leading Boy Scout troops or something along those lines.
We all have interest in just bettering the community.
our patients to to live up to their their potential and their goals and be right right alongside them.
In a small town you know more so than the big town but you get to know a lot more people probably and coaching you know you make those connections as well
right?
Oh yeah it's it's been you know you you sit down for it's a long journey going from undergraduate through medical training you often write multiple
personal statements on why you want to get into it and why you want to go to a certain residency.
And I've had numerous, numerous moments where those essays have come to fruition in our community.
And having a solid why of what you're doing and seeing that come to fruition is pretty remarkable.
And I feel very fortunate and lucky to be in my...
my professional situation here.
Practices will be starting soon, and other reminders to get those physicals taken care of, right?
Yeah, WIA sports physicals, you need them every two years.
You know, getting them done in the summertime, usually it's a lot less busy now compared to August, just with school starting and needing to get the fall sports done.
$15.
It's a quick appointment.
You have to bring the WA form and have a parent present.
Those are the only restrictions.
All providers are doing these, but you don't have to see your provider.
You can see anybody, especially if a certain date works better for you, but get them done early.
It's a necessary and important part of querying your child for athletics, and it's a requirement.
So every two years you need it.
And they go to the school and get the form, right?
You can print it
online.
Oh, you
can?
Yep.
You can find it online.
go to Richland Hospital's website.
There's a link on there.
If you just Google Richland Hospital WIA form.
Google WIA form.
Try to bring it in.
If you forget it, we'll have one for you.
It's just, there's a lot of questions on there, screening questions that streamline the visit.
If you're on a time crunch, bringing it ahead of time is important.
Great.
Always good to have you in the studio.
Yeah, thanks for having me.
I really appreciate it.
We'll probably see you on the sidelines real soon.
Yeah, I can't
wait.
It's coming.
Dr. Brian Kroll joining us from the Richland Hospital on this portion of the morning show.
Joining us on WRCO for this segment is author Mary Thompson, author of The Adventures of Coco Mia.
Lost?
Good to have you on the phone with us.
We want to get your story.
First of all, Mary, how long have you been a writer?
Well, first of all, thanks for having me on the program, Phil.
And I've been a writer, I think, in all of my professions.
But a published author is a different story, and I was inspired to write this book about my dog after she was in a tragic accident, which happened about three years ago now.
Interesting.
Well, tell us the story about that and how that happened and how you got your dog back.
Well, it happened on a very beautiful day, not unlike this June day.
She was being walked by a family friend with her two dogs.
She and the dogs were in the crosswalk when a car basically came out of nowhere, did not stop at the stop sign and hit all of them.
So three dogs and our friend was tragic and all of them were hurt, but
Fortunately, none of them were killed, which was miraculous according to the police officers.
The dogs, two of them ran, Kokomia being one of them.
The retriever stayed by the family member, of course, right?
And Kokomia ran for probably at least two miles and nobody could find her.
There was a...
a search community-wide where friends and neighbors and strangers all came out to try to hunt for her.
They could not find her, they called off the search overnight, but social media was in play, posters were up, and the happy ending to the story is that Coco dragging her leash came to a construction site and saw
the workers they recognized her called the police and returned Kokomia.
So that was the story of her return after being lost and fortunately no broken bones badly bruised but all recovered and all are still here in the pack playing like they always did.
That is an amazing story and you know the the community really responded when that happened didn't
they?
It was an amazing
outpouring, honestly.
I've never been the recipient of something like that.
And so, as I was so grateful and feeling blessed that Kokomiya had been returned to us, I thought, it's a story that really needs to be told.
That was my inspiration.
It was her courage, the community that came out, and the kindness that everyone showed.
Yeah, that's the cool thing about the story too is that you know, we all have our disagreements and our different points of view But I think everybody can see that you know, this was pretty important your dog returning, right?
Oh my I'm as I've been out with Cocoa Mia and talking about the book and her story.
It's also Has a very good reaction people that own paths feel like me
They're family members, right?
And so it's like you lost your family member and how how that that person or in this case, our dog was returned to us with nothing short really of a miracle.
So the book, tell us about the book.
Is it a children's book?
So as I mulled over how I could tell this story, I, I thought about different angles that I could use.
And I came to the conclusion that a children's story might be the best way to tell it.
I wanted to teach lessons to not only the children, but the parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles, friends reading to kids.
So that's why I chose that as my vehicle.
You, I know you were a classroom teacher in your background.
I'm guessing you appreciate the fact that somebody might read this to a child, right?
Right, right.
I've been trained as an educator.
I felt like I leveraged my background in education, learning my entire life as I walk through different professions.
And so it all culminated really with this and feeling that I continued to want to teach lessons through storytelling and then through the children's book, basically.
We wanted to get into a little bit of how you turn a true story into a book.
And I'm guessing that being said, there might be a book in all of us, right?
Well, I'm sure there is a book in all of us.
And I wasn't really, I didn't set out to write the book.
You know, this, this incident happened.
It was tragic.
It had a happy ending.
I was sitting with my mom one day just
Kind of reviewing everything that had occurred and it struck me like out of the blue.
I was supposed to write a book.
And my mom being my toughest critic.
I thought well I'm going to run this buyer right and so I. I said hey mom what do you think about this idea of writing Copa Mia story but maybe through a children's book she she sat there for a minute.
Said.
I think that's a great idea.
So I had my, I had the inspiration from, from the tragic incident that turned into a happy ending.
And now I had some encouragement because I don't think if she hadn't encouraged me, I probably wouldn't have done it.
I had no idea really where to start.
So, um, I started like any good teacher would doing some research.
Uh, trying to figure out if there were some courses I could take and I ultimately took an online class.
So that's how, that's how I started, um, to kind of figure it all out.
How did you take care of the illustrations in your book, Mary?
Well, so as I took the class and I didn't know this, probably many don't know the rubrics of a children's book.
I thought I just.
Take a minute and tell you about that.
So first of all, it's like 32 pages.
Story needs to be told with less words.
800 words are less.
And half of it's carried by the illustrator, so you raise a really good point.
So there's all of that that goes on.
So less is more in the storytelling.
The illustrations carry it.
Tell it in 32 pages.
and then try to figure out how you would publish it.
That's basically what my online class told me.
And so when I finished that, as I've done in all my work, I kind of wrote a project plan and started by drafting a story.
Do you want to know how that went?
Yes.
I
do.
I drafted my story and I sent it to the online instructor for feedback and she wrote back and said this is very nice and you need some work and why don't you tell it, you know, from the dog perspective because I had pretty much written it as it.
occurred with a light touch to what the accident was.
So I then wrote it and then I gave it to a few people and you keep editing and editing and taking the feedback and I finally told myself, stop.
I needed to make a decision.
Was I going to self-publish?
Probably you and many of your listeners know there's a lot of self publishing now.
Amazon makes it very easy to publish your own book.
Or do I try to find a publisher that could maybe help me as I really was on this journey of learning myself as I put the book together.
And at that juncture, I decided, hmm, I'm going to see if I can find a publisher who will accept it and then maybe will help me edit it for a final product rather than, you know, keep stabbing in the dark, if you will.
So that's what I did.
I started shopping it around and I found a publisher that I really liked out of...
Wauwatosa, Wisconsin.
And he said, okay, that's all well and good.
Now, you know, if you want to work together, then submit it.
We have a council, for lack of a better word, that reviews all of the book submissions, and we will get back to you.
So that's what I did.
I submitted it to Orange Hat Publishing.
And the ratio that he gave me was probably 20% of those that are submitted.
The stories that are submitted are actually published.
And I made it through that gauntlet and then started the process of, you know, more editing, less words.
And then now back to your original question about illustration, I had been working with
an illustrator that I found through my Rotary Club.
Dylan Rogers is a Rotary Scholar and she was receiving a four-year scholarship for training to be a children's illustrator at the Milwaukee Institute of Art Design in Milwaukee.
And I'd seen some of her work and so alongside this she was
meeting Coco, she met the members that were in her pack.
She drew sketches.
We refined them and refined them and refined them and worked on that all summer.
So when it came time, when the publisher asked for the illustrator, I said, well, I have one.
And he said, well,
you're the author, do you want to use her illustrations?"
I said, I'd like to.
And he said, well, let's take one of mine and see what they do, and then we'll compare the work of that illustrator with Dylan's work.
And I'm like, fair.
So as it turns out, we went through that process and Dylan won it by a mile because she knew and caught the personality really of all the dogs.
Interesting.
So I'll just pause there and see.
Do you have any questions about that?
No, that's interesting.
But I think the, the one question that sticks out is that initial feedback of, you know, your story was nice, but, um, you know, had that not happened, this other door would not have opened, right?
Right.
And I think that what I would tell everybody is feedback is hard.
I think being open to it, and if it's given with the spirit of improving and helping, then it's something you should listen to.
At some point, though, you have to make the decision when to stop and kind of take that next step, or you could just get caught in that kind of as a doom loop.
Yeah, exactly.
And maybe a lot of people do that.
They put their story away and never visited again here.
So,
yeah.
Exactly.
Mary Thompson, the author is our guest here on WRCO's morning show.
And another reason why we're talking to you is you're going to bring your show to the Brewer Public Library in Richland Center in August, August 11th.
And tell us a little bit about what you'll be discussing that day, Mary.
It's been an interesting journey as I have been, the book has been published.
It was successfully launched in September.
And the presentations I've been making have been quite flexible and aimed at different audiences.
For example, some audiences like to hear about the rotary connection.
leverage my Rotary Connection to create my team.
And I'll get to your answer here, but the team is the illustrator, my publicist Sharon Alden is a Rotarian, and the outcome for Rotary is that I like to give back to the Rotary Club, and so $5 proceeds of the books go back to the Polio Plus Foundation.
that they really have supported me on this journey.
But then as I go into libraries or schools, the topic might be changing.
And specifically for the Brewer Library, the interest there is, well, how did I actually take the idea of the book, the inspiration, if you will, to actually
publishing the book and then on to.
The most difficult and any author they talk to most likely will say the most difficult part is the marketing and the selling of the book and being able to adapt to different audiences.
So the heart of what I'll be talking about on August 11th will be that journey.
not so much content of the book, but how, how did you get the book published?
It's awesome to teach the younger folks about actually holding a book in your hand.
You know, there
was a,
there was a while when I was a little bit worried about that, but do you think we're all right that we're always going to have books to hold in our hands?
Hmm.
Now that's an interesting question.
I think that.
Again, our adaptability, and I come from, you know, the generation where that's all we had were books in our hands.
And I've adapted to books online.
There will be books.
Definitely there will be books, but the form of them may change.
And I think that as we adapt to, you know, the future, that I'm hopeful that those books will be
Available both ways to be in our hands either in a book form like we know it today or Through a digital form
What is the most common question you get Mary when you're you're out and you're speaking to groups of people?
I think the most common question is how is Coco Mia?
Yeah,
I think there's a there's a real attachment to our pupper as I like to call her
I take her with us as often as I can when the venue allows it.
And there's an instant connection with those that love dogs.
They just can relate.
I might share the first time when the story was read.
So I asked for help, obviously along the way, a reading specialist.
read the story to a class of first graders when the book hadn't even been in print yet.
We were still working off of the draft form in like a mock-up, if you will, copy.
And to see the kid's expressions when Kokomia was struck by the car and the fact that she was lost, that there was a lot of worry and angst about what would happen next.
And then, of course, the ending where she's found, reunited, her injuries are minor, and she's back home with her pack, gives that sense of relief.
So I think it really, the most often asked question centers around Kokomia.
The other question that some of our listeners may be curious about is what type of dog is Kokomia?
Yes, I should start with, I should have started with that.
So Kokomia is a 15-pound Shih Tzu poodle.
She is very smart.
She has the poodle sense in her and the Shih Tzu is definitely affectionate and a lap dog.
In fact, she's sitting on my lap right now and she's...
I guess she's sleeping.
Doesn't get embarrassed when you talk about her, I guess.
Oh, in fact, she likes people.
She likes the attention.
She loves children.
Uh, we are walking outside, um, yesterday before the storms and a neighbor boy said, Coco, Mia, can I come and see you?
And her and his mother actually read the book as a mystery reader to his class not long ago.
So those are the stories that are very heartwarming and unexpected when you think, well, you know, is anybody really enjoying it or thinking about Kokomi and the answer is yes.
And it comes from the most unexpected places sometimes.
What about your future than Mary?
Is there another book?
Is there another adventure for Coco Mia?
Well, I have a million storylines the the thing that I would say to those listening that may be interested in in writing your own book I Would and if you want to promote it, so there's several people that I've
talk to that want to be an author, self-publishing works, they don't care if they sell it.
But for those people that want to get the word out, I would not underestimate the business side of writing a book.
My background provided that, but you're running a small business.
There are inventories, there's, you know, inventory management, sales.
How do you market it?
How do you promote it?
How much do you want to get out there and tell the story?
How busy do you want to be?
All of that.
So as I think through for the next book, I want to accomplish the goals of my first book to make sure that I have it in enough reader's hands.
And then I've started the storyline multiple times, and it changes because events change.
Most recently, I would like to tell you that she's had to have knee surgery.
This was unexpected.
Now, nobody will tell us for sure, because I don't think anybody really knows, but her knee went out.
But it's on the same leg that she was also hit by the car.
So my feeling is that, yes, it's all related.
but there's a happy ending they can fix it and she had pins put in her in her knee and it's another story about recovery and so maybe that's a storyline but I have like name a topic with with Kokomi and I could write a story about it.
There are many adventures she takes us on.
Well, I can see that the whole knee surgery thing and recovery, especially again, for maybe a young person that has to face a surgery, you know, that
might be
helpful in that regard, wouldn't
it?
Exactly, because I don't think that the prep or the recovery might be much different.
I mean, you prepare the same way.
In fact, where she had the surgery was run as a hospital that we would go to.
It's very similar the way they
They did it all new to me.
That's for sure.
So you're going to be enriched on center on Tuesday, August 11th at the Brewer public library and you're hoping to reach a lot of folks that may have an idea.
You know, is that you're going to be there to try and encourage people if there
might be people and talk about talk about it and talk about the reality of it as well.
And the several decision points that I find found along the way that
I would have been helpful maybe if I knew them in advance.
Everybody will take their own path, of course, but maybe they can learn from mine.
And yours is based on a true story.
You know,
some
people might have some ideas about a fiction book as well,
right?
Exactly.
Of course.
Everybody needs an inspiration, right?
And then I think the rest comes.
Wonderful.
Well, great to meet you today.
We appreciate you being a guest on our show, Mary.
And maybe when you come to Richland Center, we'll get a chance to cross paths, but all the best to you this summer and to Coco Mia as well.
Yes.
And if you're interested in finding the book, it's on the, on the website.
That's another piece of the business plan or her website is adventures of Coco Mia.com.
and that way you will get an autographed version from me shipped right from our house.
Otherwise, she is available on Amazon and she's also in several indie bookstores in the area.
Wonderful.
Mary Thompson, our guest on this portion of The Morning Show.
Joining us on WRCO for this segment is author Mary Thompson, author of The Adventures of Coco Mia.
Lost?
Good to have you on the phone with us.
We want to get your story.
First of all, Mary, how long have you been a writer?
Well, first of all, thanks for having me on the program, Phil.
And I've been a writer, I think, in all of my professions.
But a published author is a different story, and I was inspired to write this book about my dog after she was in a tragic accident, which happened about three years ago now.
Interesting.
Well, tell us the story about that and how that happened and how you got your dog back.
Well, it happened on a very beautiful day, not unlike this June day.
She was being walked by a family friend with her two dogs.
She and the dogs were in the crosswalk when a car basically came out of nowhere, did not stop at the stop sign and hit all of them.
So three dogs and our friend was tragic and all of them were hurt, but
Fortunately, none of them were killed, which was miraculous according to the police officers.
The dogs, two of them ran, Kokomia being one of them.
The retriever stayed by the family member, of course, right?
And Kokomia ran for probably at least two miles and nobody could find her.
There was a...
a search community-wide where friends and neighbors and strangers all came out to try to hunt for her.
They could not find her, they called off the search overnight, but social media was in play, posters were up, and the happy ending to the story is that Coco dragging her leash came to a construction site and saw
the workers they recognized her called the police and returned Kokomia.
So that was the story of her return after being lost and fortunately no broken bones badly bruised but all recovered and all are still here in the pack playing like they always did.
That is an amazing story and you know the the community really responded when that happened didn't
they?
It was an amazing
outpouring, honestly.
I've never been the recipient of something like that.
And so, as I was so grateful and feeling blessed that Kokomiya had been returned to us, I thought, it's a story that really needs to be told.
That was my inspiration.
It was her courage, the community that came out, and the kindness that everyone showed.
Yeah, that's the cool thing about the story too is that you know, we all have our disagreements and our different points of view But I think everybody can see that you know, this was pretty important your dog returning, right?
Oh my I'm as I've been out with Cocoa Mia and talking about the book and her story.
It's also Has a very good reaction people that own paths feel like me
They're family members, right?
And so it's like you lost your family member and how how that that person or in this case, our dog was returned to us with nothing short really of a miracle.
So the book, tell us about the book.
Is it a children's book?
So as I mulled over how I could tell this story, I, I thought about different angles that I could use.
And I came to the conclusion that a children's story might be the best way to tell it.
I wanted to teach lessons to not only the children, but the parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles, friends reading to kids.
So that's why I chose that as my vehicle.
You, I know you were a classroom teacher in your background.
I'm guessing you appreciate the fact that somebody might read this to a child, right?
Right, right.
I've been trained as an educator.
I felt like I leveraged my background in education, learning my entire life as I walk through different professions.
And so it all culminated really with this and feeling that I continued to want to teach lessons through storytelling and then through the children's book, basically.
We wanted to get into a little bit of how you turn a true story into a book.
And I'm guessing that being said, there might be a book in all of us, right?
Well, I'm sure there is a book in all of us.
And I wasn't really, I didn't set out to write the book.
You know, this, this incident happened.
It was tragic.
It had a happy ending.
I was sitting with my mom one day just
Kind of reviewing everything that had occurred and it struck me like out of the blue.
I was supposed to write a book.
And my mom being my toughest critic.
I thought well I'm going to run this buyer right and so I. I said hey mom what do you think about this idea of writing Copa Mia story but maybe through a children's book she she sat there for a minute.
Said.
I think that's a great idea.
So I had my, I had the inspiration from, from the tragic incident that turned into a happy ending.
And now I had some encouragement because I don't think if she hadn't encouraged me, I probably wouldn't have done it.
I had no idea really where to start.
So, um, I started like any good teacher would doing some research.
Uh, trying to figure out if there were some courses I could take and I ultimately took an online class.
So that's how, that's how I started, um, to kind of figure it all out.
How did you take care of the illustrations in your book, Mary?
Well, so as I took the class and I didn't know this, probably many don't know the rubrics of a children's book.
I thought I just.
Take a minute and tell you about that.
So first of all, it's like 32 pages.
Story needs to be told with less words.
800 words are less.
And half of it's carried by the illustrator, so you raise a really good point.
So there's all of that that goes on.
So less is more in the storytelling.
The illustrations carry it.
Tell it in 32 pages.
and then try to figure out how you would publish it.
That's basically what my online class told me.
And so when I finished that, as I've done in all my work, I kind of wrote a project plan and started by drafting a story.
Do you want to know how that went?
Yes.
I
do.
I drafted my story and I sent it to the online instructor for feedback and she wrote back and said this is very nice and you need some work and why don't you tell it, you know, from the dog perspective because I had pretty much written it as it.
occurred with a light touch to what the accident was.
So I then wrote it and then I gave it to a few people and you keep editing and editing and taking the feedback and I finally told myself, stop.
I needed to make a decision.
Was I going to self-publish?
Probably you and many of your listeners know there's a lot of self publishing now.
Amazon makes it very easy to publish your own book.
Or do I try to find a publisher that could maybe help me as I really was on this journey of learning myself as I put the book together.
And at that juncture, I decided, hmm, I'm going to see if I can find a publisher who will accept it and then maybe will help me edit it for a final product rather than, you know, keep stabbing in the dark, if you will.
So that's what I did.
I started shopping it around and I found a publisher that I really liked out of...
Wauwatosa, Wisconsin.
And he said, okay, that's all well and good.
Now, you know, if you want to work together, then submit it.
We have a council, for lack of a better word, that reviews all of the book submissions, and we will get back to you.
So that's what I did.
I submitted it to Orange Hat Publishing.
And the ratio that he gave me was probably 20% of those that are submitted.
The stories that are submitted are actually published.
And I made it through that gauntlet and then started the process of, you know, more editing, less words.
And then now back to your original question about illustration, I had been working with
an illustrator that I found through my Rotary Club.
Dylan Rogers is a Rotary Scholar and she was receiving a four-year scholarship for training to be a children's illustrator at the Milwaukee Institute of Art Design in Milwaukee.
And I'd seen some of her work and so alongside this she was
meeting Coco, she met the members that were in her pack.
She drew sketches.
We refined them and refined them and refined them and worked on that all summer.
So when it came time, when the publisher asked for the illustrator, I said, well, I have one.
And he said, well,
you're the author, do you want to use her illustrations?"
I said, I'd like to.
And he said, well, let's take one of mine and see what they do, and then we'll compare the work of that illustrator with Dylan's work.
And I'm like, fair.
So as it turns out, we went through that process and Dylan won it by a mile because she knew and caught the personality really of all the dogs.
Interesting.
So I'll just pause there and see.
Do you have any questions about that?
No, that's interesting.
But I think the, the one question that sticks out is that initial feedback of, you know, your story was nice, but, um, you know, had that not happened, this other door would not have opened, right?
Right.
And I think that what I would tell everybody is feedback is hard.
I think being open to it, and if it's given with the spirit of improving and helping, then it's something you should listen to.
At some point, though, you have to make the decision when to stop and kind of take that next step, or you could just get caught in that kind of as a doom loop.
Yeah, exactly.
And maybe a lot of people do that.
They put their story away and never visited again here.
So,
yeah.
Exactly.
Mary Thompson, the author is our guest here on WRCO's morning show.
And another reason why we're talking to you is you're going to bring your show to the Brewer Public Library in Richland Center in August, August 11th.
And tell us a little bit about what you'll be discussing that day, Mary.
It's been an interesting journey as I have been, the book has been published.
It was successfully launched in September.
And the presentations I've been making have been quite flexible and aimed at different audiences.
For example, some audiences like to hear about the rotary connection.
leverage my Rotary Connection to create my team.
And I'll get to your answer here, but the team is the illustrator, my publicist Sharon Alden is a Rotarian, and the outcome for Rotary is that I like to give back to the Rotary Club, and so $5 proceeds of the books go back to the Polio Plus Foundation.
that they really have supported me on this journey.
But then as I go into libraries or schools, the topic might be changing.
And specifically for the Brewer Library, the interest there is, well, how did I actually take the idea of the book, the inspiration, if you will, to actually
publishing the book and then on to.
The most difficult and any author they talk to most likely will say the most difficult part is the marketing and the selling of the book and being able to adapt to different audiences.
So the heart of what I'll be talking about on August 11th will be that journey.
not so much content of the book, but how, how did you get the book published?
It's awesome to teach the younger folks about actually holding a book in your hand.
You know, there
was a,
there was a while when I was a little bit worried about that, but do you think we're all right that we're always going to have books to hold in our hands?
Hmm.
Now that's an interesting question.
I think that.
Again, our adaptability, and I come from, you know, the generation where that's all we had were books in our hands.
And I've adapted to books online.
There will be books.
Definitely there will be books, but the form of them may change.
And I think that as we adapt to, you know, the future, that I'm hopeful that those books will be
Available both ways to be in our hands either in a book form like we know it today or Through a digital form
What is the most common question you get Mary when you're you're out and you're speaking to groups of people?
I think the most common question is how is Coco Mia?
Yeah,
I think there's a there's a real attachment to our pupper as I like to call her
I take her with us as often as I can when the venue allows it.
And there's an instant connection with those that love dogs.
They just can relate.
I might share the first time when the story was read.
So I asked for help, obviously along the way, a reading specialist.
read the story to a class of first graders when the book hadn't even been in print yet.
We were still working off of the draft form in like a mock-up, if you will, copy.
And to see the kid's expressions when Kokomia was struck by the car and the fact that she was lost, that there was a lot of worry and angst about what would happen next.
And then, of course, the ending where she's found, reunited, her injuries are minor, and she's back home with her pack, gives that sense of relief.
So I think it really, the most often asked question centers around Kokomia.
The other question that some of our listeners may be curious about is what type of dog is Kokomia?
Yes, I should start with, I should have started with that.
So Kokomia is a 15-pound Shih Tzu poodle.
She is very smart.
She has the poodle sense in her and the Shih Tzu is definitely affectionate and a lap dog.
In fact, she's sitting on my lap right now and she's...
I guess she's sleeping.
Doesn't get embarrassed when you talk about her, I guess.
Oh, in fact, she likes people.
She likes the attention.
She loves children.
Uh, we are walking outside, um, yesterday before the storms and a neighbor boy said, Coco, Mia, can I come and see you?
And her and his mother actually read the book as a mystery reader to his class not long ago.
So those are the stories that are very heartwarming and unexpected when you think, well, you know, is anybody really enjoying it or thinking about Kokomi and the answer is yes.
And it comes from the most unexpected places sometimes.
What about your future than Mary?
Is there another book?
Is there another adventure for Coco Mia?
Well, I have a million storylines the the thing that I would say to those listening that may be interested in in writing your own book I Would and if you want to promote it, so there's several people that I've
talk to that want to be an author, self-publishing works, they don't care if they sell it.
But for those people that want to get the word out, I would not underestimate the business side of writing a book.
My background provided that, but you're running a small business.
There are inventories, there's, you know, inventory management, sales.
How do you market it?
How do you promote it?
How much do you want to get out there and tell the story?
How busy do you want to be?
All of that.
So as I think through for the next book, I want to accomplish the goals of my first book to make sure that I have it in enough reader's hands.
And then I've started the storyline multiple times, and it changes because events change.
Most recently, I would like to tell you that she's had to have knee surgery.
This was unexpected.
Now, nobody will tell us for sure, because I don't think anybody really knows, but her knee went out.
But it's on the same leg that she was also hit by the car.
So my feeling is that, yes, it's all related.
but there's a happy ending they can fix it and she had pins put in her in her knee and it's another story about recovery and so maybe that's a storyline but I have like name a topic with with Kokomi and I could write a story about it.
There are many adventures she takes us on.
Well, I can see that the whole knee surgery thing and recovery, especially again, for maybe a young person that has to face a surgery, you know, that
might be
helpful in that regard, wouldn't
it?
Exactly, because I don't think that the prep or the recovery might be much different.
I mean, you prepare the same way.
In fact, where she had the surgery was run as a hospital that we would go to.
It's very similar the way they
They did it all new to me.
That's for sure.
So you're going to be enriched on center on Tuesday, August 11th at the Brewer public library and you're hoping to reach a lot of folks that may have an idea.
You know, is that you're going to be there to try and encourage people if there
might be people and talk about talk about it and talk about the reality of it as well.
And the several decision points that I find found along the way that
I would have been helpful maybe if I knew them in advance.
Everybody will take their own path, of course, but maybe they can learn from mine.
And yours is based on a true story.
You know,
some
people might have some ideas about a fiction book as well,
right?
Exactly.
Of course.
Everybody needs an inspiration, right?
And then I think the rest comes.
Wonderful.
Well, great to meet you today.
We appreciate you being a guest on our show, Mary.
And maybe when you come to Richland Center, we'll get a chance to cross paths, but all the best to you this summer and to Coco Mia as well.
Yes.
And if you're interested in finding the book, it's on the, on the website.
That's another piece of the business plan or her website is adventures of Coco Mia.com.
and that way you will get an autographed version from me shipped right from our house.
Otherwise, she is available on Amazon and she's also in several indie bookstores in the area.
Wonderful.
Mary Thompson, our guest on this portion of The Morning Show.