Dr. Humble & Dr. Creep

Monday, June 23, 2008 (evening)

Before we left Rideout, we had a couple of visits from doctors. Dave came through the emergency room and was admitted and it wasn't until the following day that the Oncologist, Dr. N, became involved. Of course I wasn't there, so I didn't know these guys. But one evening the Emergency Room doctor stopped in to see Dave. He was so happy to see that he was comfortable. Dave had been in so much pain the ER, and this poor doctor was desperately trying to ascertain the problem. I liked him. I validated him. He said, "I didn't do anything." I said, "Yes, yes you did. You could have just as easily sent him home with pain meds for his 'back' problem. But you didn't, you ordered the chest CT. Good job!" He was very unassuming, kind and humble.

Then the weirdest thing happened late one evening. I was still at the hospital and it was past 11pm. I was kind of tucked behind the curtain in the room, all he lights were out except a reading light, and this doctor walks in and stands at the end of Dave's bed and then is startled to see me sitting there. It was strange to me. I introduced myself and got a very wimpy handshake, like it was forced and unwanted. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end. I had a bad feeling...

This was the admitting physician when Dave came into the hospital from the ER. He started to have a conversation with Dave that went something like this..."So, well, I would never have pegged you for Myleoma, not in a million years. What will you do now?" Dave looked at him, as did I, like, "What do you mean?" Dave finally actually said that. The doc said, "Well, I mean you have Myeloma. If it were me, I would go back to Maryland. I would want to be with my family." The way he said it was so encrypted though... we were both struggling with this feeling of what is he really saying. I said, "What family? We're not FROM Maryland. We lived there a long time, but we aren't FROM there." He said, "OH! Well, I mean, well, where is your family?" I respond, "We have family all over the US and our children are in College." He says, "So I guess you really can't go back, I mean your job, your health insurance, wow, that's too bad. Well, why don't you go to Stanford for treatment then?" We are like, "Why, we have UC Davis here, they do treatment?" He says with a dismissive, derisive tone, "Well, I mean, well, Dr. N is in charge of your ship now!" (Ohhhh, he doesn't like Dr. N!)

He left. Dave looked pale. I was angry. I had finally gotten Dave in an optimistic frame of mine with a Cancer Diagnosis (with a lot of help mind you!) and this guy comes along and made him feel like, he should rethink his life because he's going to die. Now, remember, at this point, we still didn't know that MM had a short life expectancy (except that isn't true anymore). So he was taking the outdated point of view, but we didn't know there was any other point of view but the one we had, which was a full recovery. Dave was falling apart right before my eyes and I wanted to go out there and string the guy up from a beam right there. But instead I decided not to waste my time with this guy, nor give him any power or attention whatsoever. I stayed focused on Dave. We talked on the phone while I drove home and into the night. I got him out of the mental hole he was slipping into. I didn't get him back completely to where he was, but he didn't slip away into that dark horrible void of being totally defeated. With Dave, its a head game. I was struggling to get his head in the game. He's an athlete, he's a coach, he knows the deal, but right now, he was none of those things. He was a guy that just found out he had cancer and he was scared, he was acting like he had already lost. I was very angry and very scared, but right now, I was Dave's cheerleader, I had to get him in the race and Dr. Creep just really screwed with his head!