Wednesday, December 9, 2009

One of the great failings of our medical delivery system in Canada is the lack of family doctors for all who want one. By family doctor I mean a physician who is your doctor, someone who you can see when needed about great woes and not so great woes, someone who knows you, someone who you trust, someone who is your health partner.
I have an incredible family doctor. She came into the life of my wife and my life by accident. We had moved to a new community and the doctors were simply not taking patients. I was in a local pharmacy, happened to ask the cashier if she knew of any doctors taking patients and she told me of a clinic a few towns over that had a new doctor who was taking new clients. I drove right over and she took us.
She has always been good but my admiration of her really reached a new height in this recent journey. She was the one who sent me off to the hospital for the myocardial perfusion scan. She is the one that phoned me at home twice in one week to talk about the results and ask me how I am doing after the initial results came back.
She was very supportive of my running programme and told me today that she in fact was proud of me today. Okay, a cynic would say “hey, she says that to all the patients who were planning to do a 5K race on December 31st and found they have severe blockages and now are having major cardiac surgery that could kill them” but I don’t care..she said it to me. We had a very frank discussion and she showed me the report for my procedure. She even printed the thing out. She asked me how I feel and what I fear. I told her, and don’t mind saying that I had excess saline liquid in my eyes. That is man talk. A woman would call it crying. There were tears of fear and tears of worry and tears of gratitude. Stuff also came out of my nose but likely no one reading this wants to know that.
She told me that I must promise her not to hesitate to call if I had any worries or fears or concerns. She would gladly take the time to talk with me and explain what she knew. She offered to refer me to psychologists that deal with issues like fearful middle aged men. She asked how I am sleeping and told me to let her know if I ever had problems so we could discuss solutions. She asked me about my medications and my reactions to them. We spoke about pain management options as I recover. She gave me some insights into the world of cardiac surgery.
How do you know the value of something? A new Kindle has more value than a box of matches until you are stuck in a howling snow storm in a cabin with a nice woodstove full of dry firewood. Reading the latest rant from Dr Phil ain’t going to keep you warm. I am learning every day the value of love, family and friends. For too long I had thought of these a bit like that book of matches – there, but sort of ordinary.

Today I really learned the value of my family doctor. She is what she is because of her family, her teachers in public school and high school, her instructors in university, her mentors, her colleagues, and her friends. I will never meet these people but they have my everlasting appreciation.

No comments:

Post a Comment