WRITER - The Tyee -
The Impatient Patient (Continued)
In the weeks following this encounter – weeks, it should be told, of diminishing pain and sunnier dispositions – I thought about certain through lines in my life and I realized that I have always had a “interesting” relationship with the medical profession. I am not madcap enough, hippie enough, revolutionary enough to assume that the medical profession is fundamentally corrupt and that only echinacea and St. John’s Wart will save me. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, I am a compliant and obedient patient. Yes, Doctor. Thank you, Doctor. On the other hand (as Tevye would say), I am a thinking person and I do believe that this is my body and my life and sometimes I just simply cannot buy into the party line. Sometimes – not often, but often enough to have made a serious difference in my life experience – sometimes, I simply do not accept what the doctors are telling me. And that’s when I have to make some difficult decisions.
Some stories to illustrate.
When I was five years old, I broke my leg. When the doctor was preparing to remove the full-length cast, he suggested to my mother that I should probably wear a special shoe. My mother went home and sought the advice of her father, a man who had come from Russia to sew furs together into jackets and coats in the back room of a shop on Portage Avenue in Winnipeg. My Zaida (grandfather) listened to my mother (May they both rest in peace.), took a drag of his ever present Players plain cigarette and said…
- Well, it seems to me that if David wears a special shoe, he might grow a special foot.
The shoe was a non-starter. Never happened.
In my early twenties, I had come to Vancouver to listen to Jazz and abuse substances and swim in the streams of free love. Soon, my throat was closing and I was soaking through the bedsheets with a fever dangerously high. I was young and alone in a new city and I certainly couldn’t claim a family doctor. I walked in off the street to someone’s office near Broadway and Main. He told me at a glance that I had Bilateral Somethingorother, which was a fancy expression for Tonsillitis and that it was no problem. He could fix it right here in the office.
- Here? The Office?
- Oh, yes. We just use a local.
- A local anesthetic?
- Sure. For the gag reflex.
I was so quick out the door, I may have left some of my essence in his chair.
I dashed back to my little apartment, looked up Ear, Nose and Throat magicians in the yellow pages, and, by the next afternoon, I was telling the kindly Dr. Badger in the old Georgia Medical Building my story. He just laughed.
- You know, David, most of my colleagues are idiots. They don’t keep up with the Journals. Here’s how this works. First we put you under a general anesthetic. The, when you’re asleep, we do add the local to stem the hemorrhaging in adult patients. Simple.
And that’s exactly what he did. At St. Paul’s Hospital a few days later, they sent me shushy-bye-byes; I woke up, had some ice cream and went home. End of story. I still shudder thinking about a guy putting a needle into the back of my throat and then carving me up while I’m sitting in his office like this is a trim and a shave. I don’t think so.
In my mid-thirties, my aunt Toby phoned from Winnipeg to advise me that my mother’s psychiatrist was considering Electro Convulsive Therapy for my mother. My mother was brilliant and wonderful and different. But she needed neither psychiatry nor shock so-called therapy. I asked Toby for the doctor’s name and phone number.
- Ah, Mr. Berner, how may I help you?
- Well, actually, Doctor, I’ve called to help you.
- Oh?
- I understand that you are considering Electro Shock Therapy for my mother.
- Yes.
- O.K. I need to tell you something that I think you’ll find useful and important. And I’ll speak very clearly and slowly because I want to be sure that you understand what I’m saying.
- Alright.
- O.K., Doctor. Here’s what you need to know. If you consider proceeding with this course of action – shock therapy, electro, or insulin, or any similar barbaric torture – there will not be enough insurance on this earth for you to ever practice medicine again. You will be selling shoes at The Bay. All of your years of study, all of your memberships at the golf club and the curling club will be gone. You’ll never pay off your debts. Doctor, did you understand what I just said?
Thank you, Mr. Berner.
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