Yeehaw, hubby got his jet pack up and running and I'm posting this now. Power will be down a minimum of six hours tomorrow so the only connection I'll have is my phone. Wish us luck. Yes it is a temporary inconvenience but I'll be practicing some skills we may need in the future. Plus, until that time these new electric lines are going to build our security and redundancies.
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Chapter 116
My Dear Kay-Lee,
While we’ve never had the kind of relationship that was assumed, I do feel we’ve been closer than your average doctor/patient situation normally creates. You may find this strange after what I just wrote but I feel the need to explain a few things. The time is coming sooner than I anticipated that I will lose the opportunity to do so.
I have always admired you. You may wonder at such a statement, but even us doctors learn things from our patients. Even as a child you had courage … and stubbornness … that I have found no other of my patients to equal. You faced every pain with equanimity. Every set back with determination. When control was wrested from you, you found a way to steal at least some of it back. Hospital staff were often unnerved by your calm reserve even in the face of terrible odds. And you did it in a world of loneliness where often those that should have sympathized with you most, turned their faces away in fear. Yes I know, you have your academic challenges, but it always stunned me how often people allowed that to blind them to your cleverness. The strength of your stoicism made my job both easier and harder. I knew what it cost you, yet you never failed to do what was asked.
I often wondered what would become of you. I certainly never envisioned what your life has become, what you’ve made of your life, and I want you to know … I am proud of you. So much was stacked against you, but you never let it stop you more than you could help. The only time I have ever seen you come close to giving up was during that ill-fated time I won’t bring back up. But even then, you faced it with a rare dignity that people much older would have lacked. I should know, I’m afraid I lost my own dignity recently.
I was forced out of the hospital and into early retirement by my former colleagues because I wouldn’t go along with some of their plans and schemes that took away too much from our patients. Perhaps in one sense they are correct, a little of something is better than nothing at all but my moral code, my Hippocratic oath, and admittedly my pride, wouldn’t allow me to bow to the hospital administration’s demands. So there I was with a license to practice medicine, years of experience, above average skill, but no patients and not allowed to have any since I wouldn’t play by their rules. They then put a lien on my private property for fines and fees and unpaid debt they claim I owe … all of it a lie as none of the doctors I’ve spoken with were aware we were being charged what amounts to a club fee for practicing medicine and having access to the building, supplies, and other healthcare staff just so we could earn money for the hospital. I was feeling sorry for myself. Depressed. Losing all hope. A doctor is all I have ever been, all I ever wanted to be. The pursuit of my calling has cost me a marriage and looks to have cost me a relationship with my children as well. And now an illness I thought I’d seen the last of in childhood has come back. Leukemia. I believe at one time I may have even mentioned to you that was why I went into pediatric medicine in the first place.
They have denied me treatment. I am triaged because they have included my childhood cancer as rounds one and two, which makes this time round three and that disqualifies me for further treatment. I was ready to simply give up and, dare I say it, take matters into my own hands, rather than suffer the same indignities I’d seen many of my patients suffer, including you. And then came the knock on my door late one night. An old friend in need of help. There is a community not far from you that needs someone who specializes in pediatrics. They need someone to train their staff. In exchange, I have a place to feel like I am still viable … as a doctor, a teacher, and as a human.
I have decided to fight the cancer with the few options available to me with the help of my friend and this community of people. My long-term outlook however, since I insist on being completely honest, is not good. Barring infection or other complications I will extend my life, but it is unlikely to extend it into a full remission. But I refuse to simply give up. You never have. And I suspect, regardless of circumstances, that you ever will.
In that vein of thinking use what is in these boxes to make your life less painful for as long as you are able. It is the last bit of doctoring that I will be able to do for you. Be very careful that you do not share this largesse or even reveal it to anyone else. Burn the boxes and store the contents in some other container. I am given to understand from the people I now live with that your circumstances are not without … well, I won’t comment on it as that isn’t my place beyond saying that this is from me to you, for your use and your use alone. And knowing you I’ve also included a few things for the young woman you are sharing your home with. I can do it in the here and now. I can fight for my calling. But the reality is that this is my last and final “doctoring” for you.
I’ve seen some miraculous things in my life as a doctor that can be explained no other way than that there is a Creator Being, a God, who touches some for unknown reasons. One of the most miraculous I’ve witnessed is a baby that refused to die to the point she became surprisingly successful at living.
May our Creator continue to touch you for the rest of your life so that you may in turn touch others as knowing you has touched me.
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I admit I nearly bawled like I was Jolene’s age. Dr. Carruthers has been the one and only constant in my life since my birth. I might not be able to label her family, but she is certainly more than a stranger to me. She says I taught her dignity. I say she is the one who taught me. I never had to guess at her motives. Even when I didn’t like what she was doing I knew I could trust her.
And I hope she knows she can trust me. She is not an over emotional woman. The letter must have cost her. To share that much and to do it in a permanent way by putting words on paper. She’s never been cold, but her reserve is legendary. So is her strength and dedication. She kept a lot private for me. She never had held it over my head at how close I came to becoming an addict, how close I came to taking my own life out of fear of the addiction. I’m not afraid of pain, I’m afraid of the pain making me lose control, destroying my inhibitions. She never said, “After all I’ve done for you …” She said, “You are strong enough to choose.”
I can only guess what she did. How she simply walked away with all of it I can’t even begin to guess. There were labels inside the boxes telling anyone that could read the contents belonged to City Hospital. There were enough naproxen tablets to last me two years and that’s if I only used the pills. There was Cur-a-med all natural acute pain relief liquid tabs that I’ve had some success with in the past. Also in there were things that I’d read about but never tried but would as a supplement so that the naproxen could go even further. Arnica salve and gel, a form of topical pain relief. Naspirin tablets made from willow bark. Neuropathy creams and salves. A balm made with frankincense and myrrh. Hemp cream that also contained aloe and turmeric. Lidocaine patches, sprays, and roll ons of varying strengths.
In addition to pain relief peculiar to my needs the boxes also contained Midol, Advil, Tylenol, Rolaids and other antacids, eye drops, ear drops, nose drops, Zostrix analgesic ointment, Capsaicin cream, steroidal salves, triple antibiotic ointment as well as similar products, all of them name brand. There were other first aid supplies, and no few of them almost surgical. There were dental supplies such as toothbrushes, toothpaste, and floss as well as mouth pain and cold sore type pain relievers. There was children and baby formulated medications. Vitamins and minerals in individual formulas as well as mixed together in combos. There was the aforementioned prenatal vitamins and things to help Barbara take care of herself after the birth. There was another case of condoms and Barbara laughed so hard at that – and my explanation of why she’d thought to include them – that she had to run to the bathroom. She nearly had to run back again when she found out the good doctor had sent a separate case for her.
How she squeeze all that she did into those four boxes I’m not sure I want to know. It took time and patience and creativity that’s for sure.
I know Dr. C told me to keep it all to myself – and there were some things that I did, including some stronger medications that I may have to use this winter though none of them as strong as what is yet hidden in the safe in the basement that no one but Sawyer and I know about it – but there was no way to hide that I’d come up with things that Barbara truly needed. If the boys any of the rest of them ask I’ll just say that yes, she was able to send me a small bottle of my “little blue pills” but the rest of it was more of my medical records.
What she sent me was a small fortune. How she got it I’m pretty sure I don’t want to know. I suppose she thought that if they were going to charge her and take her home, she was going to make sure to get her full value on it. Certainly what the fourth box contained is nothing short of miraculous. Salt. Real table salt, not salt substitute or sea salt. I’ll have to be sparing with it but I’ll put it to good use as well. In the corner of that box is something I’m not sure I am ready to think about. There was a box with potassium iodide tablets and instructions on how to deal with radiation poison. I’m keeping those to myself as well.
Does Dr. C know something the rest of us don’t? Is it those people – the Mountain Compound – that knows something? Is it one of those plan-for-the-worst-and-hope-for-the-best things? What happens when it finally hits me that the woman is dying and there’s not a dat blasted thing I can do to help her? Not the least because she isn’t the type to want me to or share that part of her life (death?) with someone that may have meant more to her than most people but was yet still just a patient.
Dr. C said I had courage. I’ve tried. But I’m relying more on my stubbornness these days. What happens when I run out of it like so many other things are running out?