The Good Doctor

There are people in this world that give us what we want and not what we need, and sometimes, not always, but sometimes, those people, are not good for us; especially when they’re in the medical profession.

Eleanor Brophy has several doctors of varying specialties that she visits; A General Practitioner, A Podiatrist (to cut her toe nails), an Ear Doctor (who cleans her ears of wax using the tiniest, thinnest vacuum possible) a Dentist and a Neurologist, among others. She has visited two Neurologists in the past month and while both are wonderful, only one gave her what she needed even though she didn’t want it, and in the process gave Melanie and I what we both wanted and needed as well.

Strokes alter brain chemistry in mysterious ways; increased memory loss, heightened sensitivity to light, and astonishingly alarming mood swings are all part of nature’s cranial grab bag. It’s the combination of the mood swings and memory loss that hurt both myself and Melanie, as well as Eleanor.

After the first week of returning from rehabilitation in June, Eleanor began to show signs of slight memory loss and a slightly increased temper. These two traits have steadily increased since then, and one sets off the other.

Like all proud and stubborn people, Eleanor has no faults, she is practically perfect in every way, and, like all proud and stubborn people, she is completely wrong about that. Earlier today I had two conversations with her that would have usually resulted in me throwing my arms up and walking away, leaving her to resent me for the rest of the day, but thanks to a new technique I learned from the Good Doctor Jeremy Gill, things took a slightly new and welcome turn; we reached an equal ground at the end of our disagreement. That is not to say that she did not rant and rave and yell what she had to say, but at least, I didn’t.

Eleanor’s General Doctor, who will remain nameless out of respect, is a fairly decent doctor with a great personality. Unfortunately for Eleanor, he is on his way to retiring and simply doesn’t seem to give it his all. This is the same doctor who felt it wasn’t necessary to see Eleanor until over a month after her stroke, and still a month after her second one. This is the same doctor whose arm we had to twist to agree to take a urine test from Eleanor to detect a UTI that everyone (including the visiting nurses) agreed she had every symptom of. When we finally went to visit this doctor only one other person could go with her into the examination room, and as Melanie is Eleanor’s medical proxy, she was the lucky volunteer.

The Doctor asked Eleanor a few questions, took her blood pressure and sent her on her way. Before he left the room, Melanie ask him if he was going to take the urine sample he had said he would when she spoke with him previously on the phone. Before we arrived to see this Doctor we had Eleanor take two urine tests with the visiting nurses to test for this clandestine UTI. Both times the results were reported inconclusive due to contamination. At first we were called by the nurses and told she had tested positive, but the following day were told the results were inaccurate and inconclusive. In response, this Doctor told us he would have Auntie Eleanor take a clean and sterile urine test in his office during her visit.

The urine test never happened. Instead, when Melanie reminded him of it, Eleanor said she did not want it, and he simply said “I don’t think it’s necessary” and left the room sending Eleanor home. So, two inconclusive tests later with a patient who exhibits every sign of having a UTI (which also increases dementia in older people) and this Doctor thought a test that could increase her good health isn’t necessary. Okay. Sure. No problem. Actually, yes, major problem. Aside from the fact that Melanie is Eleanor’s Medical Proxy, it is an absolutely careless assessment of the situation- one that he doesn’t have to live with, one he doesn’t have to suffer the consequences of. How easy it must be to make those decisions regardless of the want or need of others.

Eleanor left the Doctor’s Office getting exactly what she wanted; a pee-pee free experience. Melanie and I left the Doctor’s office feeling absolutely disheartened and definitely feeling that Eleanor’s actual medical needs were not met. This was not the first time a Doctor had given Eleanor what she wanted or didn’t want in our presence but it is the first time it happened since Melanie became Eleanor’s Medical Proxy and Power of Attorney. This Doctor knew those facts, and yet, nothing happened according to our wishes.

There comes a time in all our lives where the decisions we make are no longer in our own best interests. They’re made out of comfort and complacency and feed into the small fears we have, turning them into self-serving monsters, but if we’re smart, we have the foresight to allow the other people in our lives, the ones we trust the most and who are capable of caring for us even when we don’t really care for ourselves to make them for us.

Eleanor chose Melanie to be that person.

Eleanor resents Melanie for being that person.

Three weeks ago we received a letter in the mail from the neurologist that saw Eleanor while she stayed at the Rehabilitation Facility after she was diagnosed as having had a stroke. He wanted to see her for a follow up visit in Worcester, MA, which is over half an hour away. Upon seeing this, Eleanor protested, saying that she has plenty of doctors here in Framingham and can see one of them. She wanted Melanie to call and find out what the appointment was for, and despite the answer cancel it anyway. Melanie called the next day to investigate the appointment and found out it was State Law that this doctor have a follow-up visit with her, so she had to go.

Before going to see this doctor, Mel and I decided to speak with him before he saw her to give him all the information we could, all the information she would deny and never bring up. Melanie made it a point to mention that she would put on the mask of wellbeing for the brief visit and nothing would be done to improve anything, just as she has done in all the previous doctor’s appointments we’ve had. A typical doctor appointment lasts about 15 minutes; after speaking with this doctor and giving him all the information he needed to know about her current condition, he spent almost 2 hours with her.

Doctor Gill knew that she would be able to put on a façade for a short time, but that eventually her true personality and state of being would show through. Sure enough, within 20 minutes, her short temper and general unpleasant disposition emerged, and finally, Melanie and I were validated. The Good Doctor Gill even went so far as to make her angry in general, so he had a sense of what her temper was actually like, and oh yes, he got that sense first hand.

After talking with her about what her life was like now as opposed to what it used to be like, he reminded her that the ONLY reason she is currently living in her home with time to settle her affairs is because Melanie and I had agreed to move in with her and be her caretakers for a time, and that without us doing that, the Rehabilitation Center would have admitted her to a nursing home NOT of her choice without a chance to go home at all. Eleanor acknowledged this, but only on the surface, and did not really let it sink in. She began her usual rant about garden upkeep and how no one would buy the house if the garden wasn’t absolutely perfect and Doctor Gill retorted by pointing out that what matters is the house itself (which Melanie and I have been working on Day and Night) and not the garden- no one would buy a house based on the condition of a garden and any weeds it may have. Auntie Eleanor immediately quipped back saying “no, no one will buy the house if the garden isn’t clean” and she and the doctor engaged in a battle of wits to prove the other wrong. To Auntie, this was an argument, to Doctor Gill, this was one of the tests he wanted to perform on her. She finally ended by saying “Well, I wouldn’t buy it.” And he reminded her saying “The garden makes no difference to the condition of the house itself. You’re the only one who thinks like you, everyone else thinks differently” and she replied by saying “Well I don’t know about that.” Doctor Gill, showing slight signs of aggravation himself, moved on to another topic; the art of letting go.

Every ten minutes or so Doctor Gill took the time to remind Auntie Eleanor that she is in a time of transition; from living on her own to moving into a nursing home, and that she needed to begin letting everything go. He would ask her if something she would complain about was actually “important.” She would reply with a “Yes” a few times before he would calmly (and believe me, this Doctor was calmer than Lake Placid… without the alligator.) tell her she needed to let go of it because Melanie and I would take care of it.

Eventually he saw that she has trouble letting go of anything and getting her to see that her state of Transition is anything but that. Personally, when I think of Auntie’s inability to let go, I think of an image from one of the short film’s I made. We shot on a vineyard in early November, half of the vines were alive; the other half were dead. In one shot, a very close-up shot, there’s a very green, very living and soft vine wrapped around one of the guiding wires. Just next to it, is a very brown, very dead vine, that is so dormant that it actually had the consistency of tree bark. This vine would never be soft again, it would never untwist or move or bloom, it was going to be this way from here on out, and that is how I see Eleanor.

Eleanor also complained that she hasn’t been sleeping well, which we can attest, she hasn’t. Whether this is due to the amount of times she gets up to pee or her inability to let things go, holding onto the neuroses even in her dreams, is unknown, but Doctor Gill prescribed her an sleep-aid/mood enhancer (an anti-depressant) and then took a urine sample to test for a UTI.

It turns out Doctor Gill also specializes in Geriatric Care, so this type of thing isn’t new to the young doctor. He gave Eleanor her best and sent us on our way.

On the way home, Melanie and I sat in silence, in awe of the experience we just had. He didn’t just help Eleanor, he helped us as well.