An Undoing

My lead doctor called me a week ago last Friday, it was a chance to update him on how things had gone at the cancer centre the afternoon before. In a post in previous days I’d written about how he’d planted the seed about irradiating my heart. I’m still not ready to even begin considering that option (it’s more than a little disconcerting that I’ve not found any info on the internet about such a procedure and I’m trying to evaluate how vast the risks are that I’m willing to take in the name of pain reduction).

At the end of our call that morning, my doctor quickly added “CBC. Watch at 5 p.m. on Monday. A film crew has been here with my team for the last few days and I'd like you to catch it if you can”.

There’s no DVR machine where I’m staying, and didn’t have any luck finding anyone who’d be able to record the program for me. But I was able to watch a TV for the hour long program that afternoon, and I was thrilled to learn that my doctor (and a primary benefactor for his team as well) were both to be featured on a documentary highlighting the accomplishments of Jamaican-Canadians in a wide array of fields.

My heart filled with gratitude and warm memories as the program included an interview with my doctor, showed many of his associates whom I’ve come to meet, and panned the lobby of the hospital wing that was named after him in a ceremony almost two years ago.

I was at that ceremony. It took quite a bit of effort physically to be there, coming from our home about an hour from downtown on a blustery November evening. It was arranged that a friend drive me to the train, and I met my husband at the station in the city and we proceeded by cab to the hospital.

As the only patient invited, I felt so honoured to be there and nothing was going to stop me from attending. My husband so carefully held my hand as we made our way up and down staircases; and as was his habit he’d invisibly form a circle around me that no one could enter lest they bump me and break one of my fragile bones or cause me any pain.

My reason for holding the honour as the sole patient in attendance was because in the months prior, my doctor had given me the privilege of photographing him for a project to be entitled “Empathy”. It was his idea to include my husband and daughter in the photo session, and from those photographs a beautiful painting was created (by a doctor who happens to be multi-talented) that was used in a campaign for 3M. I'm also told that sometime in the future it will hang in the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa as part of an exhibit honouring outstanding Canadian doctors. Postcards of the image hang on bulletin boards around the hospital; it always make me smile when other doctors point out that they know my photographs inspired the painting. And they know because my doctor will tell anyone who’ll listen about how this all came about. His humility is astounding; he finds any way he can to give credit to others. We all know the truth of what an incredible man he is and I couldn’t be prouder to have contributed in a small way to recognizing what he does for his patients and the medical students/doctors who have the phenomenal opportunity to learn from him.

 I watched his segment of the program with tears in my eyes, thinking about all that he, his team and the benefactors have done for me over the last three plus years.

But then it flashed on the screen. I knew in my gut it was going to appear in the program, and there it was. The painting.  On the big screen I was seeing my husband and my daughter interpreted in a lovely piece of artwork that sums up so much to me about empathy. When we did the photo shoot I was so grateful to my family for agreeing to take part. At that time all three featured in the photograph conveyed what was desired. Empathy. The three of them were doing everything possible to support me as patient, a wife, a mother and I was beyond grateful to have so much love around me.

It felt like a punch to the gut. Here I was on what would have been our seventh wedding anniversary, looking at my husband on TV (or more accurately the back of him). Remembering the ceremony at which he kept telling me how proud he was of me. To anyone who would listen he would say how grateful he was to be by my side, proud of my courage in fighting my illness, that I was his hero, that we made a fantastic team. That it was so easy to forget I was sick because our house was always full of laughter, affection and love. Hadn’t Sandy done a wonderful job of portraying the intended emotional response?

A few short months later (incidentally soon after doing a radio interview for CBC radio in which I praised his unrelenting support) he told me that he wanted out of the marriage (or at least wanted a version of marriage that turned my stomach). That he hadn’t loved me for years, didn’t like me anymore and at times even hated me. And vehemently, at that.

A punch to the gut. Trying on one hand to share in the thrill that my doctor, his family and his staunch supporters might be feeling after watching the program but reeling from the reminder of what used to be. I was told that when the exhibit opens in Ottawa I’ll be invited. I’ll move heaven and earth to be there to support my dear doctor, but I don’t imagine at this moment that I’ll have it in me to ever look at that painting again.