Doctor of Hope

I just have to throw out a public THANK YOU to Dr. T (even though she doesn't read my blog). Dr. T is my surgeon and she has been instrumental in building my hope for the future. I have had 4 interactions with her (which is actually a lot in the course of 6 weeks) and each time she has built me up. That there's a good doc.

What did she do? How does a doctor build a patient's hope?

My first appointment was early in this process, back when all I knew was that I had stage 2 breast cancer. I was plenty worried about a "stage 2" diagnosis and concerned about my long-term chances. She came into the room and almost the first words out of her mouth were, "This is very curable" and "You can fight this thing." We talked about the options and the statistics and I left that meeting feeling like a boxer eager to get in the ring.

A week later, in meeting with a different doctor, I got the result that my cancer was already in my bones. That doctor did a good job delivering that tough news and I was actually very impressed with how it was handled. But, I was scared out of my mind. I came home and cried for an hour.

The next day I called Dr. T's office to order a copy of my medical records. After her nurse got those pulled out for me she said, "Actually, Dr. T is standing right here and she'd like to talk to you." She got on the phone and told me how sorry she was about the bad news and that she wasn't able to deliver it herself as the medical report had arrived at her office all of 10 minutes before I met with the second doctor. She then told me that she "just wanted to give me a hug through the phone" and tell me I still had a lot of reasons to have hope. A bone metastasis was very favorable to a lung or liver metastasis.  Plus my cancer is estrogen positive which means we can fight it long-term with hormone therapy, which she had seen great results with first-hand. She encouraged me to continue on the course of doing chemotherapy first and told me I was going to see the existing tumors shrink and that would give me a lot of encouragement. She told me to hang in there. I hung up from that conversation and cried, this time tears of relief. I felt like the sun had come out from behind the clouds. From that conversation I found the confidence to believe that I would live to raise to my children.

I saw Dr. T again today for a follow up visit for my port surgery. Strange... I didn't even pay a co-pay today. I wonder if this visit was even on the books? It was a short visit and we hardly even talked about my port. Instead she wanted to see how I was doing. She was encouraged at how well I handled my first round of chemo and thought maybe I'd have a pretty easy go of it. She told me to call for anything and gave me a hug before she left. Again, I was renewed in mind and spirit.

There are certain people who are in a position to do an especial amount of good for another. When in a health crisis, who knows better how things will turn out than your doctor? And when your doctor radiates confident hope in your future it's impossible not to believe it.

Thank you Dr. T. You have given me hope.