How life in the White House killed Dr. Connies marriage
In her nine years at the White House from the last year of President Bush to eight years of President Bill Clinton she witnessed the dedication of other Filipinos on the staff and their devotion to their bosses: Master Chiefs Joe Fama, Lito Bautista and Fred Sanchez who worked as personal valets to the presidents and their families. They were, she says, her lifeline to surviving the stressful environment of the presidential residence.
I could not have survived those years without the help of many Filipinos in the White House, especially several valets of the President, who are Pinoys. Many times, I got the inside info on the presidents schedules and plans from the Pinoy valets even before the security men did, she writes.
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Dr. Connie found herself a crucial character in the Monica Lewinsky scandal. She drew blood sample from Clinton to match it with DNA on Lewinskys dress. She writes of the tall slender long-haired beauties or POTUS baits who occasionally paraded in front of Clinton.
Dr. Connie also cared for Virginia Kelley, President Clintons mother, before she died of cancer; treated First Lady Hillary Clinton for a blood clot; stitched First Lady Barbara Bushs arm after a fall; and gave a Heimlich Maneuver to a White House guest during a holiday gathering.
As Clintons term drew to a close, Dr. Connie mulled the next stage in her career. Her thoughts are contained in a journal to her son Jason, where she writes: Mommy is gone on another trip this week. The house is dark and sad. When she is away, it is as though she is dead
My hands shaking I closed the notebook, I felt as though I have been stabbed in the chest. I have been dead to my family for too long, to my two little boys, and to my husband. My decision has been made then: It was time to leave the military at the end of my tour with Clinton.
The book turns reflective when Dr. Connie looks back at how she became so wrapped up in the care of the presidential families she had forgotten her own. I have been missing in action for nine years to take care of the First Family. Would my real family need me when I finally come home to stay? she writes.
Her marriage died, Dr. Connie confesses. I didnt know how to be a wife. I also grew to become another person from the one Richard married eight years after we met in high school. Like many couples who separate, we found that we simply have grown apart, not together. Her former husband, Richard Stevens, was a lawyer. They have two sons, Jason and Andrew.
In 2001, she retired from the Navy to join the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Arizona. She founded the Center for Executive Medicine in 2005. It is a presidential-like practice that provides care to about 350 CEOs around the world. She is married to her former patient at the Mayo Clinic, John Weber, who is CEO and president of Remy International.
When John proposed marriage, Dr. Connie told him, Dont be ridiculous! Im your doctor! He said hell get another doctor, to which she shot back: Youll never find a better doctor.
http://thefilam.net/archives/2740
She took him with her when she went to speak at the Reagan Library. Since then, he’s spent a good chunk of his money shuttling wounded vets around the country on his airplane.
He even got Medal of Honor recipient Sammie Davis to come speak with us and personally funded a number of his school outreach trips (travel, hotel, etc.).
They’re very committed people and people who think she’s a liberal just because she “weighed in” on Christie’s girth are missing the big picture.