For 29 years I have practiced emergency medicine in Anchorage. I have taken care of bear maulings, heart attacks, gunshot wounds, broken legs, concussions, earaches, pink eye, collapsed lungs and ectopic pregnancies. I have reduced dislocated shoulders, hips, ankles and elbows. I have sutured lacerations, cut open hemorrhoids, drained boils and disimpacted constipated patients. I have inserted tubes into chests, bellies and bladders; needles into hearts, spinal columns and almost every joint; and my index finger into every orifice found in the human body. I have worked hard to help save lives and sometimes my help was not enough.
Most of this I have done with what I like to call, the 'High Plains Drifter glint' in my eyes. A glint that says to the patient, "I am here to fix your emergency." A glint bearing a steely resolve that says, "Your problem is important and we are going to solve it." A glint that says, "I care and right now you are the most important person in my life." A glint that reeks of confidence, knowledge and years of medical practice. A glint that comforts, soothes and assures. A glint that inspires the patient to stare back into the narrow slit of my eyes and say, "Yes, doctor, I feel lucky."
I recognize that the glint resides mostly in my mind. I have not heard the nurses speak of it, or my physician colleagues admire it, or my patients remark on its soothing effects.
I have long recognized that for one group of patients the glint was not there. This group of patients was cancer patients. Seeing them thin, hairless and ill, I had difficulty focusing on their eyes. I could not summon the glint. I recognize that it was my own fear of the disease that stifled me and made me cast my gaze aside.
One year ago my wife of 38 years had her annual mammogram and was diagnosed with breast cancer. I denied it; I cursed and railed at God; I prayed it could be me instead and I cried. How could she be one of those patients? How could I not give her the glint?
She, of course, never lost the sparkle in her eyes. The sparkle that says she cares more for others than for herself. The sparkle that never dims and shines brightly for everyone.
Still I thought surely she needed the glint.
It was when we met her oncologist, Max Rabinowitz, that I recognized she needed more than the glint. He is kind, well respected and knowledgeable. More than that, he has this gleam in his eyes that embraced us and said, "We are going to get through this." It said, "You have a nasty disease; it isn't fair and we're going to beat it."
The gleam bathed us in hope and assurance as he explained our options and the vagaries of breast cancer. He mapped out Jane's course of treatment, as the gleam said "you're going to be a survivor."
When we left his office her 'sparkle' danced and I recognized how I can be a better physician.
Jane is a survivor. She had a lumpectomy, chemotherapy and 36 radiation treatments. She had pain, got tired and lost her hair. She was sad, worried, frightened and she never lost the "sparkle" in her eyes.
Her hair is back, brown and curly like never before. She has become an advocate for others traveling her path. Her sparkle gives them hope while Max's gleam makes them know they can also be survivors.
When I go to work in the ER now. I am keeping the glint and I am working on a gleam that looks into a cancer patient's eyes and says, "I am going to do everything I can to help make you a survivor ... and you are going to survive this."
John Hall is an emergency physician at Providence Alaska Medical Center. On April 1 he began a 12,000-mile bike ride to increase cancer awareness and raise money for the Susan Butcher Family Center and the Lance Armstrong Foundation. At this point on his bike trek, he is in Florida.
By JOHN HALL