1 The Bucket I thought it would be easy to immerse my hand in a bucket of thirty-­two-­degree Fahrenheit water (zero degrees centigrade). I swam across the Bering Strait wearing a swimsuit in thirty-­eight-­degree Fahrenheit water (three degrees centigrade). I swam for two hours and six minutes and reached Russian shores. The water temperature in the bucket was only six degrees colder than the Bering Strait, but my hand ached. It was shouting at me to lift it out. I was jet-­lagged and sitting wearing a swimsuit in a laboratory at the University of London. Dr. William Keatinge, one of the world''s experts on the effects of cold on the human body, had asked me to participate in the study.

He was measuring blood flow into and out of my hand in the cold. The goals of his studies were to contribute to medical research and learn more about how people survive in cold water. There were monitoring devices attached to me: thermocouples on the fingers of my left hand, forehead, and right toe measuring my skin temperature. I had a rectal probe--­a thin wire inserted in my body--­measuring my core temperature. Dr. Keatinge was standing near the monitoring devices with two researchers. They were watching the screens, and Dr. Mattie Scarborough, an internist, was sitting beside me to make sure I was okay.

I focused on the pace clock in front of me. The clock had two hands. The red hand was the second hand and the black hand was the minute hand. The red hand seemed to be moving slowly. It seemed like the seconds were minutes. I didn''t think I would be so uncomfortable. I tried to focus on my breathing. My breathing was fast.

I was anxious. I never knew what to expect when I was asked to participate in research tests. I should have known it would be challenging. These tests always were. I knew how to train for channel swims and I knew how to adapt to unexpected situations, but these tests were different. I had to push myself mentally and physically in ways I had never done. I never knew what would happen or what the outcome would be. It was exciting to explore with the researchers, and learn things we didn''t know, but it was also challenging, and sometimes frightening.

How could six degrees Fahrenheit make that much difference? I thought my hand would adjust to the cold and it would relax; that''s what happened when I swam in cold water. But my hand felt different in the bucket. It felt as if it were freezing to an ice tray. The pain made me queasy. Dr. Keatinge warned me that the test could be difficult. He had run other tests on me, and he had accompanied me on my Bering Strait and Beagle Channel swims. These were swims that hadn''t been done before.

He was on the support boat to observe me and make sure I didn''t go into hypothermia and die. Dr. Keatinge thought that I was very different from other people he studied. He was right. From the moment I was born, my parents knew I was different. I was born almost a month early. My parents were worried. They weren''t sure I would survive.

My body was covered with fine, soft, wooly hair. My mom said that I looked like a little seal. They had never seen a baby covered with downy hair. It was a sign for them that I was going to be different. They worried when I was born because I weighed only five pounds. But I quickly put on weight, and I grew larger and much stronger than other children my age. I think it was a survival mechanism that kicked in. My parents now worried that I was larger than other children, and my dad, who was a radiologist, had me tested.

The pediatrician discovered that I have an efficient metabolism, which helped me thrive and become an endurance athlete. My parents encouraged me to swim, and I discovered that I loved being in the water more than on land. I was lucky; at an early age I discovered something I would always love. I was lucky, too, because my parents always supported me and gave me a lot of freedom. When I was only six years old, they let me visit the neighbors on my own. The neighbors were from all over the globe. I was intrigued by their differences, because I was different too. They told me stories about their childhoods and why they decided to come to America.

They told me America was a special place where they could live their dreams while continuing to celebrate their cultures. They brought the art, food, and music from their homelands. Knowing them enriched my world and made me realize that being different was good. My dad, a physician, said that the color of one''s skin is only a wrapping. It doesn''t matter. Everyone is human. Everyone needs to be cared for. My mom was an artist.

She loved to paint pictures of people with different skin colors and physical characteristics. She said their differences made them beautiful. I realized that it was the differences among us that made life fascinating. My neighbors liked me because I was different. Mrs. Smith said I was patient and determined. She liked me to visit her, and we had tea and cookies with her three orange cats and Heidi, her huge German shepherd with large white fangs. Heidi had long shiny brown and tan fur and large brown eyes.

She looked so soft and beautiful and I wanted to pet her, but Mrs. Smith said she would bite people who were not members of the family. My friends were afraid of Heidi and would never have petted her, but I thought I could find a way for her to like me. I took this on as a challenge. One day when Beth, my Dalmatian, and I were walking past Mrs. Smith''s home. Heidi ripped through the front screen door and attacked Beth, putting five large bloody punctures in her back. Beth was howling in pain as she ran home.

Heidi frightened me, but she was gentle with Mrs. Smith. She would put her head in Mrs. Smith''s lap and nudge her arm with her wet black nose so Mrs. Smith would pet her. I thought that if I was patient, Heidi would give me a chance. I visited Mrs. Smith every day, sat on her couch, and began by sticking out my index finger when Heidi walked past, so she would feel my touch.

The first time I did it, she turned and glared at me. I thought she was going to bite me. But she just walked away. I was scared, but I did it again the next day, and the day after that. I was patient. After a month I touched her with four fingers, and then one day she walked over to me and put her large head in my lap. I could feel the heat from her head, and I could feel her heart beating. Mrs.

Smith said I could pet her. Heidi had brown fur on her ears and muzzle that was so soft, and she closed her eyes when I scratched behind her ears. She was in bliss. I visited her every day after that. She walked beside me around the house, and she sometimes grabbed my hand in her mouth and asked me to pet her. But I always waited until I was sitting down and she put her head in my lap. She looked at me like she loved me. Her eyes were soft, and her mouth opened into a smile.

We became friends. I learned that by being patient and persistent I could do what I wanted to do. Sometimes Dr. Smith would come home when I was visiting his family. Dr. Smith, the oldest doctor in the neighborhood, had thin white hair and thick glasses, and he was always serious. I was a little afraid of him, but one day, I asked him if he liked cutting people open. He seemed surprised and said he had never been asked that question.

He said he didn''t enjoy it, but it was what he needed to do to help people. He removed organs that were diseased or defective and repaired organs that were affected by an injury. I was fascinated by his abilities. He knew so much about life and the way the body functioned. My friends weren''t interested in medicine, or in spending time talking with adults, but I was thrilled to hear his stories. I sought out the other doctors in the neighborhood to learn from them as well. Dr. Duffy lived around the corner.

He was an anesthesiologist and his daughter was my best friend. I would play with my friend and wait for him to come home after work. Dr. Duffy spoke with a slight Irish accent. He was short, bald, had bright blue eyes, and loved explaining how he put patients into a state of suspended animation so they wouldn''t feel pain during surgery. I thought it was magic that he could put them to sleep so they didn''t feel a thing. Our other neighbor, Dr. Tung, was an anesthesiologist too.

He studied anesthesiology in China and also did acupuncture. He explained how he inserted needles into different parts of the body to open passageways and reduce pain. It was difficult for me to imagine that sticking needles into someone''s body could help relieve pain, but I believed him. And I visited Dr. Nenopoulos. His daughter was my friend. He was an ob-­gyn and he knew I was a swimmer. He told me intriguing things about life.

He said that babies swam around in their mothers'' stomachs in salt water for nine months. When they were born, he caught them, and then they took their first breath. He said that moment always seemed like a miracle to him, and it did to me too. I loved learning about life and being with Arthur Daviau, my grandfather. He was a doctor and a long-­distance swimmer who swam across cold-­water lakes in Maine. He believed that genes had a great bearing on people''s health and development. I thought I inherited my love for and acclimatization to cold-­water swimming from him. He thought so too.

My grandfather was a public health doctor and he knew that there were illnesses that were genetically carried in families. His cousin, Victor McKusick, was a geneticist at Johns Hopkins University, and he agreed. My grandfather knew that people could.