Glad to hear that you’ve found a doc that will include you in the decision making process. Monday will be here before you know it.
I thought of you last night when a Lutheran pastor, Dave Kyllo (maybe you know him), discussed with us faith, sacrament & prayer. The part where he suggested that often doctors and clergy were the most difficult of patients reminded me of some of your current journey. It’s really tough being where you are though, and I’m not sure that it only applies to doctors and clergy. Docs & pastors do sort of know the other side of the desk so to speak and so you know the drill, maybe a little more than is helpful at times.
Do you remember a movie titled “The Doctor” starring William Hurt? Hurt’s character was diagnosed with throat cancer, and got the run around from colleagues that he knew, no less. He turned to a close personal friend to do his surgery, who was much less qualified, but who treated him as a human being. The final scene of movie was classic. On his first day with interns when he returned for rounds, he made them strip and put on the hospital gowns, you know, the ones open in the back. The final scene is a group of very uncomfortable interns parading down the hall behide the doctor learning what it felt like to be a patient in a huge impersonal city hospital.
Some of the treatment your getting is as much why I want to be a lay chaplin as anything. I want to try to humanize a very impersonal and often dehumanizing environment for both the patients and their familes. Health care is as much caring for human beings as it is about treating whatever is physically wrong. It’s more about the “thou” than the “it.”
Love You,
