Dieter, a cancer patient in California, was part of a group discussion session at a cancer retreat. He started talking about his doctor, an oncologist, who had been giving him chemotherapy for some time.
Every week, Dieter would go to the doctor's office for his injection. Afterwards he and his doctor would sit together and talk quietly for a while. Fifteen minutes, no more. Unitil he came to the cancer retreat center, his doctor was the only person to whom he could talk honestly, who understood the experiences that he was going through.
Cancer had changed his life. He now lived so far beyond the usual, the normal, the ordinary in life, that he often felt alone. Many people did not want to hear about how it was with him, or couldn't understand things that had never happened to them. Some were so upset by the pain of it all that he felt the need to protect them from it through his silence. But his doctor understood. For fifteen minutes every week he was able to talk to somebody who listened, who didn't need him to explain, who was not afraid. . . .
For some time now Dieter had suspected that the chemotherapy was no longer helping him. Convinced at last of this, he spoke to his doctor and suggested that the treatments be stopped. He asked if he could come every week just to talk. His doctor responded abruptly. "If you refuse chemotherapy, there is nothing more I can do for you," he said.
Dieter had felt closed out and pushed away. . . . And so he had continued to take the weekly injection in order to have those few moments of connection and understanding with his doctor.
The group of people with cancer listened intently. There was a silence, then Dieter said softly, "My doctor's love is as important to me as his chemotherapy, but he does not know."
[The piece goes on to explain that, unknown to Dieter, his oncologist was having psychotherapy with Dr. Remen (the author), and came to every session talking about the fact that no one cared about him, that no one would notice if he vanished so long as someone was there to do rounds, pay tuition, and take out the garbage.]
I felt this piece was so meaningful because I now know that feeling of attaching real importance to the amount of care and love you feel from a particular doctor. Especially after being poked and prodded by so many different doctors during my last four months, I found myself instinctively trusting those whose love for me felt palpable. Although D and I joke about my flirting with the doctors (and though I am sure that Dieter's oncologist could not be more handsome than Dr. Maragakis), it is still true that the real reason Dr. Maragakis and Dr. Witham mean a lot more to me than the others is that I can tell how much they care, not only through their tireless actions but through their interaction with me. It makes all the difference to the patient (and her husband, I think) in that it lessens the feelings of isolation and loneliness that come with having a serious illness.
This was also why Hopkins meant so much to us after our stay at Shady Grove. It wasn't just the exponential increase in skill and resources aimed at our problem -- it was the personal caring and attention that went into their care of us. Even the jackoff radiologist who wouldn't do the MRI despite my wishes was acting out of a sense of caring -- not for me, but at least for the baby. One late evening while I was in Hopkins, I was lying in my bed, attached to the IV and the machines on my legs preventing blood clots, and I was crying. I couldn't help it, I simply was unable to keep it together for one more minute. The nurse happened to come in just then, to do some bit of busywork. Instead of ignoring my tears, which some might even think would be polite, she said, "Are you in pain?" I said, "I'm sorry. I'm just so scared." She reached out and lay her hand on me, and the look on her face said that I didn't need to feel sorry for showing my fear and suffering, and that she felt it, too. I won't claim that those kinds of gestures helped me more than the steroids and oxycontin, but they were at least as important.
Interestingly enough, last time D and I were at the obstetrician's office, we got into a discussion about the movie Knocked Up. Dr. Fraga is a powerhouse -- she's always on the Washingtonian's lists of best doctors, and she is a tall stork of a woman who wears Manolos with her lab coat and is not shy about her opinions. I wouldn't say she is the most personally caring of the doctors I've had, but she almost seems that way because she is charismatic, funny, and thorough. She said she had no desire to see Knocked Up -- "some things just aren't funny," she said, after D tried to explain the scenes when the couple is hunting for a good ob-gyn and when Ben leaves the nasty voicemail on the obstetrician's phone for not showing up at the birth. The doctor vented a bit at the lack of respect doctors now get and how they are the laughing stock of insurance companies and the public at large (duh - I'm a lawyer), and she ended, thoroughly disgusted, by saying, "We're not even physicians any more. Now we're 'caregivers.'" As if that were a bad thing to be.
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