Posted by RN320 on March 10, 2007, at 14:09:17
I want to give you an update on my Therapist, Dr. P, who suddenly became ill with a brain abcess and ended up on life support for about 3 weeks back in early Nov, 2006. At the time, and even since I have received messages of support, concern and encouragement that helped me so much as I struggled to deal with finding myself suddenly and unexpectedly cut off from weekly therapy (for 5+ years) and very upset and concered that my dear Dr. P might die. As many of you may remember, he's young- the picture of health and all of a sudden he was faced with the grim reality of death multple times during that initial 3 weeks. He was not expected to survive. My pdoc, although I love him dearly, is no therapist (even though he thinks he is!) so seeing him weekly through this ordeal didn't help me much in that area, but it did keep me on my meds and made me comfortable that there was someone there if I really needed help. When I last posted on this, I think that I may have mentioned that he had survived the initial trauma of the abcess and 2 surgeries done on an emergency basis only to find that he had residual speech deficits, especially in the area of "word searching". So he was going to start aggressive Speech Therapy the first part of December.
Well, this coming Monday 3/12 I have an appt to see Dr. P!!!! That's right, he's coming back to his practice. He's only going to be seeing 4-6 patients a week for awhile since I've heard that he tires really easily. He called me a week ago, and he sounded exactly like his old self to me. I didn't notice any difficulties with his speech. He speaks just as rapidly as previously and has been able to retain his outrageous sense of humor. I had been worried that he might have changed to the point where we wouldn't "click" anymore, but I think that has been addressed by his call. We talked about alot of things in a call that lasted almost an hour, and he told me alot of what had happened to him, and it was as bad as I had imagined.
I had sent him really funny and sometimes outrageously stupid (I thought) cards every week while he was gone. I also sent him the Sigmund Freud and OCD Man Action figures to play with. In the more outrageous cards I would tell him that the only way that I would stop sending them was for him to "get the hell better"! I decorated the envelopes of some with stickers and obnoxiouis and tacky stuff so that it would make him cringe when he got it in the mail. (WOrked like a charm!) I tried to be his court jester, since I could do nothing else to help him. I think that I did this for me also, because it helped me keep it real that he was alive and had survived, and hopefully one day would be better. I made sure that anything that I wrote him was funny, or of a light subject matter. Unfortunately, I hear that he's reviewing my (enormous) chart with the weekly visits with my pdoc (hereby referred to as "Therapy-NOT"!)to get caught up with all of the crappy stuff that's happened with me since he's been gone. So, now he's going to know that my life wasn't so funny and lighthearted during his absence, and I'm kind of feeling bad about burdening him with that, because the past 5 months have been very challenging for me.
I would really like to thank you all again for your kindness and support at the time that Dr. P became critically ill and beyond, and just thought you might to hear some good news- it's actually a miraculous recovery worthy of being shared and celebrated!
In closing, I would like to share with you something that Dr. P wrote and sent to all of his patients a couple of weeks ago,as he was contemplating coming back to his practice. I hope that you will find these words as meaningful as I did! You can "hear" what a life altering experience this has been for him, and his attempt to make it into something positive for others....
"A Different View of Adversity" by Dr. P
"In the face of adversity, life can seem so cruel, so cold, so unfair, and so unforgiving- no one is exempt. But the adversities of life can teach us many things. Our hardship engenders strength and fortitude; our trials and pain teach us empathy and forgiveness. Through our abject despair and hopelessness we learn wisdom and how to have peace; through longsuffering we aquire patience, and through our healing we are taught how to be humble and grateful. And then we are closer to love more, to cherish more, to adore more, to give more, to accept more, to laugh more, to cry more, to feel more, and to do all of these things relentlessly."Many thanks and best regards to you all. I'm really looking forward to my appt on Monday!
/m
poster:RN320
thread:739887
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20070309/msgs/739887.html