I wrote this solely for my own amusement…You can see I’m in a writers mode right now–translating all of my feelings into words, even if its totally loopy and crazy 🙂
***
Doctors I’ve had, if they were playing cards:
Ace of Spades: the doctor who told my mother it was too late for an abortion. Ace of Spades is the most powerful card in the deck, and this definitely warrants the place at the top.
Ace of Hearts: Dr. C Andrew Schroeder.
Ace of Diamonds: Dr. Jeffrey Sherman, for helping me hold on to whatever life I had in me for the last 9 years.
Ace of Clubs: Dr. William Cameron, for giving me to get access to ivig here in Canada.
**
King of Spades: Dr. Eric Hanson, at the NIH.
King of Hearts: Dr. Sunjay Dutta. Always supportive and kind.
King of Diamonds: Dr. Moses Fallas, for taking out my gallbladder when I desperately needed it, in spite of my negative imaging studies.
King of Clubs: Dr. Harris, for allowing me access to antibiotics, even when we didn’t entirely understand what was wrong.
***
Queen of Spades: Dr. Pamela Zarick, for pulling my mother aside when I went to the Centreville Urgent Care in Centreville, Virginia was 16 years old, telling her, “your daughter has a severe ecoli infection in her vagina, and she doesn’t have fever or an elevated white cell blood count, and that isn’t normal”. Unfortunately, my mother didn’t follow up, but at least that memory was lingering at the back of my mind. I knew I wasn’t normal, I just didn’t know exactly how abnormal at that time.
Queen of Hearts: Dr. Rita Kachru. She’s been like my sorority sister in the medical world.
Queen of Diamonds: the fellow in Dr. Borish’s office, who yelled at me (and waved her finger in my face) for being a smoker “YOU of all people, SHOULD NOT be a smoker”. Ah, to be young, idealistic and passionate again.
Queen of Clubs: Dr. Lauren Crosby. Technically my son’s pediatrician, but she’s been very supportive of us over the years, and helpful.
***
Jack of Spades: Roy, Terry and Sonia at Cedars for being the best lab stickers. One set of blood tubes here in Ottawa and I was horribly reminded of their greatness.
Jack of Hearts: Orit and Edith, for everything they did for me.
Jack of Diamonds: Shane F., for coming over to start my IV all those months, before I finally ran out of veins and had to take the plunge and get the port.
Jack of Clubs: Dr. Borish, for being one of the first ‘important’ doctors to validate my immune deficiency (and provided the most entertainment of any physician I had…hence while he will always be remembered as ‘the Mad Hatter’ 🙂