PERSONAL HEALTHCARE
(Part I: The Good
News)
I have been blessed with good health and good health care
whenever I needed it. Mother birthed me under the care of Dr. W. C. Wedemeyer,
the old-fashioned country doctor of the rural area of Walburg, Texas. He
literally came with the traditional black bag. I seldom needed him. Mom knew
how to deal with it when I (and my siblings) had measles, mumps, chickenpox,
red-eye, infections in bare feet which had stepped on broken glass, sharp nails
or really tough-to-get-out cactus needles.
When I was about 7 I had a ruptured appendix with puss all
over my intestines. This was before antibiotics had been discovered and I was
on the “critical” list. My cousin-by-marriage Dr. Harlan took very good care of
me at King’s Daughters Hospital in Temple, Texas and got me out o intensive
care and home safely.
When I started teaching in Tracy, California my very seldom
if ever seen doctor was Dr. Longley, the well respected father of Louise, one
of my fourth grade students.
When we moved to Hong Kong we had Dr. Rankin, an all-around
expert who was there as a Southern Baptist Missionary who treated me as a
colleague.
When my wife Jane developed an exceedingly difficult to
diagnose illness, she was visited by one of china’s very best doctors, the
personal physician for Madam Chiang Kai Shek. Without an angiogram or other
modern device he diagnosed Jane’s illness as a cerebral aneurism. We flew her
(in a coma) to the USA where the attention of Dr. Livesey and excellent care at
Baptist Hospital in San Antonio and my Texas family brought her healing.
Now I have the person who must be the best primary care doctor
in the world, Dr. Joel Diamant. And I must tell the story of how he happens to
be available to me. I needed a new personal physician. I was told by reliable
sources that Dr. Diamant was tops. By wonderful coincidence, his wife also an
M.D., and I were members of the same church. By further good circumstance Dr.
Diamant’s mother-in-law Ruth attended my Bible Class whenever she visited here
from her home in Illinois. She was a conservative, very Biblically literate, of
strong convictions who monitored my every word. One day after church I said,
“Ruth, I want to talk to your daughter.” “Why do you need to talk to Carrie”,
she asked. I explained that I wanted her son-in-law to take me on as a patient.
“He’ll take you”, she pronounced.
The next day I called Dr. D’s office. I explained my need.
“Oh, sir,” his secretary explained, “Dr. Diamant has not taken on a new patient
in 3 years as he is now head of the entire hospital’s fellows program”. I
explained to her, “His mother-in-law said he would take me.” Twenty-four hours
later I became Dr. Diamant’s first new patient in three years.
The list goes on. Dr. Dennis Gile is my caring and competent
dentist. Dr. Jan Ryan treated my ears and loss of hearing as she would her own.
All of this brings me to the care our son David who has been
diagnosed with terminal neck and cheek cancer. The technology has been
wonderful. They got his mask right for his extensive radiation. The hyperbaric treatment
was there to increase blood flow. The acupuncturist is helping with his eyes
and drug reactions. Dr. Murphy took lots of his expertise and time to diagnose
and prescribe – and then to stop radiation when it no longer worked. He was
kind, compassionate and professional in giving us the much dreaded advice that
there was no further healing help he could offer.
So that is all good and I am grateful - and in my next Blog
I’ll talk about “Health Care: Part II. The Bad News”.
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