I met Dr. Ana Eng at Arby’s for lunch one day this spring. It was her suggestion because, as she said, “I have food allergies, so I have to be very careful. I know that there are a couple of things here that I can eat that won’t harm me.”

I have written about Eng’s food allergies and about her two nearly fatal experiences with the food preservative sodium bi-sulfite, but when I learned about her interest in floral arranging and other things, I decided to contact her again.

Eng is of Chinese descent but was born in the Philippines. She came to the U.S. to do her internship in Burlington, Vt., and she also studied pathology for a year in Madison, Wis.

“I did 100 autopsies during that year and realized that I prefer to interact with live patients,” she said with a smile.

It was then that she pursued a career in dermatology. She has had two mentors with whom she has studied and who influenced her — Dr. Hermann Pinkus of Monroe, Mich., and Dr. Amir Mehregan. Today, she continues to practice dermatology one day a week and does pathology for other dermatologists during the remainder of the week.

Eng has lived in Elmhurst for 35 years and watched her two children grow up here. However, being a wife and mother and physician is only a part of who she is. Among other things, she was a docent for seven years with the Chicago Architectural Foundation because, as she explains, “I wanted to learn more about Chicago’s buildings.” She also trained as a docent with Brookfield Zoo, but because of other commitments has not yet worked there.

Perhaps her most unusual hobby came about after the birth of her second child.

“I wanted to lose weight, so I took a class in belly dancing at the YMCA. After a year of classes, we gave a recital, and a friend told me that it would be more appropriate given my Asian background to do hula dancing.”

She showed me a photo of her in full costume and explained that she now only performs a hula dance on special occasions and never tells anyone in the audience she is a physician because “people don’t expect a physician to do something like that.”

Perhaps her greatest passion is floral arranging. She is an award-winning floral designer who, years ago, joined the Elmhurst Garden Club as well as Tree Town Garden Guild and Crestview Garden Club. This led to classes and eventually an exam to not only enter floral designs in competitions, but also to be a judge. Photos of several of her arrangements are evidence of a talent for combining unusual elements to create intriguing designs. She is planning an appropriate arrangement for her niece’s upcoming wedding reception at the Shedd Aquarium.

When I asked if she ever felt pressured to design something special, she answered, “No, ideas always come to me.” She showed me many photos she has taken of cloud formations, which often inspire her floral designs, and said, “Inspiration can come from anywhere. You just have to look around and be open. Sometimes I find items at Wal-Mart, and once I picked up a piece of scrap metal at a garage sale that became part of an arrangement that took its inspiration from the Picasso statue downtown.”

Because of her food allergies, she no longer travels to foreign countries, but she does make frequent trips to Madison, Wis., and to California to visit her son and daughter and 2-year-old granddaughter, Lana.

“I realized when I nearly died that I must live every day to the fullest, to be kind to everyone, to value creativity and loving relationships more than material goods and to not procrastinate,” she said.

Somehow, I don’t think Eng has ever been guilty of any of these things.