In a strange twist, before he came to see me, my surgeon was
in the examining room next door to me, meeting with a family. When he first went in to talk to them, he
must not have completely closed the door to that room. I could hear everything he was saying,
although the other people’s voices were muffled. He was explaining to the person that there was a tumour on their kidney, that it was likely cancer, and he explained
the options that they had for treatment.
It was such a déjà vu moment for me. This surgeon is the one who had had “the talk”
with us when my husband was first diagnosed with cancer over four years ago. What a long journey it has been for us since he
spoke those first words. The long months
of waiting, the chemotherapy, the nephrectomy, the recovery, the long agonizing
wait as we wondered whether cancer would reappear. And gradually hope dawning. And then further down the road, my own
thinking about being a kidney donor, which led me back to the surgeon, back to
the hospital, for surgery and recovery,
and here I was hearing my surgeon beginning that story again with a whole new
family. My heart went out to those
faceless people in the room next to me. I could imagine all the emotions that
were swirling inside them.
And the surgeon’s voice was exactly the same; calm, sympathetic, competent, clear. Answering
questions patiently. At some point a few
minutes into the interview, someone closed the door, so then I could only hear
muffled voices. I thought about what a hard job this surgeon had, going through
this over and over and with many cancer patients each week.
Around 20 minutes later he came into the room to see me. And I was a smiling patient, not a worried
one. And I could thank him for doing
such a good job on my surgery. He told
me that it was a remarkable gift that I had given to someone. And I told him that the reason I was able to
do that was because he was such a good doctor.
What happened to my husband and I was hard, but our experience with him
and the other staff at the hospital was as positive as it could be. And a direct result of that positive experience
was that I would consider coming back willingly and going through that surgery
myself. He saves lives in a lot of
ways, not just by what he does, but how he does it, the attitude he brings to
his work.
I'm glad I met this doctor, and that I was able to work with him to do something important together.