A Great Patient

I mentioned that at my last appointment, Dr. T had volunteered to come give a talk at my college. This is, quite honestly, an amazing offer. For one, this is a guy who works, like, 80+ hours a week, making hundreds of dollars an hour, and lives an hour away. He really has nothing to gain from this - nothing at all. Now, oftentimes people say things in passing that they don't really mean, but there was honestly no reason for him to say anything if he didn't mean it. He is the one who brought it up completely out of the blue, so I decided he was serious. And my mom was there to corroborate this.

This was such a nice offer that I really didn't want to ignore it, but at the same time, it is a fairly complicated process to arrange to have a speaker come and give a talk. And even if you get through all the hoops, then you have to worry that no one will actually show up for the talk, and it will be a waste of the speaker's time and an embarrassment to your institution, not to mention the person who arranged the talk (which in this case would be me). Of course, I could always have him come and talk during one of my class times, but plastic surgery is not directly relevant to anything I teach, aside from the fact that 90% of my students think they are going to be doctors someday. Plus, I would feel really bad having him come down in the middle of the day to talk to a group of largely apathetic students, when he could be doing life-changing surgery instead.

However, apparently my mom and I had the same thought at the same time. My dad runs something called the Café Scientifique at our school. The idea of the cafe is to highlight the scientific work being done locally, outside of the traditional academic context. There are cafe talks once a month - Tuesday evenings in the university pub - and they are always about random topics related to something interesting and new in anything remotely science-related. There's a group of dedicated cafe-goers - mostly faculty and administrators - who go regardless of the topic. And, of course, various topics draw people who happen to be interested in the topic. But the important part is you never have to worry about no one showing up. If nothing else, there are random students in the pub who become attendees whether they want to or not. It seemed like the perfect forum for Dr. T to give a talk about boobs and butts. LOL. And since my mom thinks Dr. T is hot (and oh, is probably a great speaker, too) she of course mentioned it to my dad, and there actually happened to be one open spot left for the April cafe.

Here is where you hope Dr. T really meant what he said, because my dad e-mailed him, introducing himself as my dad, explaining was the cafe is, asking him if he would like to come give a talk, and thanking him for taking care of me. Apparently Dr. T responded immediately - my dad sent his e-mail at 6:04 PM and received a reply by 6:09 PM - and was so amused by Dr. T's response that he forwarded it me:

Dr. Moon, (interesting role reversal here)
I would be honored to speak on advances in plastic surgery.
Waning is a rather extraordinary young woman and a great patient. It's been a pleasure getting to know her and her husband.
Ty

HAHA! So apparently I am a great patient?! Those are words I never thought I'd hear. LOL. It got me thinking... I wonder what constitutes a 'great patient' in a doctor's mind. I always figured I was the type of patient that doctors dread seeing because I'm needy and demanding and have ridiculously high standards, much like the over-achieving, uptight straight-A students that drive me crazy. (Contrary to popular belief, the best students in a class are rarely the instructors' favorites.) In Dr. T's case, I'm constantly pestering him with questions via e-mail, including one mortifying e-mail in the middle of the night, and I strong-armed him into doing a surgery he didn't want to do. I'm guessing that if all of his patients were like me, he'd have to work 200 hours a week. (Wait, are there even 200 hours in a week?) I mean, I think I'm a pleasant enough person, and I make an effort to express my gratitude when it is deserved, but I think that's pretty normal, no?

As for the extraordinary part, that actually strikes a chord. Because I am not. But I wish I were. The thing is there is nothing wrong with just being a normal, ordinary person. Not everyone can be extraordinary, by definition. However, as some of you know, I spend a lot of time frustrated with my professional life, overcome by the feeling that I need to be doing something different. Maybe not something extraordinary, but something... more. And if there is one thing that will make you feel the weight of your own mediocrity, it's getting cancer and being cared for by people who truly are extraordinary - people with a wealth of knowledge, insanely refined skills, masters in their fields. People who really do save and change lives for the better.

Many people will try to convince you that cancer will make your life better, because it will change your attitude, make you appreciate the beauty of life, whatever. I don't buy it. Make no mistake about it: I already had a deep appreciation and love for life before I had cancer. I was already working to change my professional life. I can forgive myself for getting side-tracked from this while dealing with cancer for the past five months, at times wondering if I have enough years left to make it worth the effort. But now it's clear to me again: I need to do something more, something that is at least different from my old ordinary. I keep thinking of the words of Anna Quindlen, who was the speaker at my college graduation. She said that as graduates of our particular college, we had obviously done well, but the question we should ask ourselves was, have we done good? I need to do some good. Even if it's nothing extraordinary, I need to do better, be better. But first, I have to get better.