I love to hear them, tell them, and preserve them through writing (features or fiction).
Now most people aren't excited to get hospitalized, and I am one of them. But I heard three three good stories three people told me on Sunday that I wouldn't have heard, had I not been admitted for observation and tests over this past weekend.
Not only are the stories good, the stories remind us that real people, most of the time with good hearts and values along with their skills, are treating us when we are ill.
In the first story, a health care worker shared with me that he's from one country, grew up in a second that has universal health care and euthanasia (and shared personal experiences), and prefers the United States over all countries.
What prompted the story? A short discussion about why I was here with reassurance that I was in the best place and having the best tests to figure out the issue.
In the second story, a surgeon shared the disastrous results when one patient used the internet to diagnose and treat a bowel condition. Except the problem was serious and severe: with bowel strangulation and adhesions choking off other internal structures.
What prompted such a story? A review of my medical history, which includes the pheochromocytoma (almost all health care workers without fail want to hear more because pheochromocytomas are so rare).
Yes, I did research my symptoms online. But perhaps because I'm a journalist, I apply critical thinking to my search results, the who, what, when, where, why, and how surrounding the information I'm reading.
During that time, I also tracked physical symptoms along with clinical ones, such as blood pressure and pulse measurements.
And I searched and logged for nearly nine months before I had a diagnosis.
It's having that discernment and applying the good old scientific method I learned as a kid in school.
So he wanted to hear more. And he shared how disastrous internet advice for health issues can be.
I did not argue with him. Because I know it's true. And it's certainly a good cautionary tale.
The third story is the most sublime. This one came from my the doctor serving as my primary in the hospital, an older doctor who is also a specialist in a particular area of medicine.
He, too, wanted to talk about the pheochromocytoma and even had some experience with it in past patients. But he never had a patient whose tumor had bled as mine had (even more rare - just 85 documented cases since 2021 - and the mortality rate goes way up when it happens.). And so, he was curious about it.
So we talked a bit, and I even name-dropped the surgeon at Mayo Clinic, who still wanted to operate on me (once I was stabilized) and did so successfully when other doctors thought I was too high risk and should just go home.
I shared with this primary how very aware I was of the fact I should have died in 2002 and how I never take a day for granted.
Now, I didn't take days for granted before the tumor either.
But when you're still alive twenty-one years later from something unfamiliar to most people that most doctors have never seen, and that thing should have killed you, the gratitude is more sublime, I think.
So then this doctor shared a story that he told his wife, that they are on the downswing of life. He said that each time they go to dinner together, they should enjoy it that much more, for the dinners they will share will continue to be fewer and fewer now they are older.
"We will not go together," he said. "Either she will go first, or I will go first."
For that reason, he said, we should cherish each day and our time together.
Have a beautiful Wednesday!
No comments:
Post a Comment