Well, maybe not EVERYONE will watch while you drown

My medical oncologist has a physician's assistant who is the most reliable, responsible, caring, helpful, understanding, empathetic, resourceful, and responsive medical professional I have ever worked with. Words cannot express the gratitude that I have for this woman. I wish I could tell her.

She has returned every single phone call I have made in the past year, the same day with relative promptness, and no matter how late. She has stayed on the phone with me as long as I needed her to, answered every single weird question that I have had, helped me to resolve every issue that I have had in this process, she has been honest and also reassuring, she has ordered medical tests that were unnecessary just for my peace of mind, she has helped me with things and doctors that are not her responsibility, she has seen me on days when she had no available appointments, she has seen me on days that she was not even doing clinical hours. My medical oncologist is the same - very caring and very responsive. A rarity I think sometimes when it comes to medical professionals.

So when all else fails (like it did today), I call this woman. After all of this mess with the cancer center today and what to do and who to get help from - after being brushed aside despite my pleas for help - this woman has returned my phone call, like always, to say that she and my doctor will work with the psychiatrist to prescribe the proper medication and start me on that per the psychiatrist's prior recommendation, that she will call the other psychologist in the cancer center and see if she can see me (funny, but the social worker told me there was no one else in the cancer center who could help me) and that if this woman can't see me (although she doesn't know why she wouldn't be able to), she will find someone who can who will take my insurance. She told me she has no clinic tomorrow so she has all morning to work this out and she will call me in the a.m. with the plan.

This woman is a life saver. Repeatedly she has been there for me through this whole entire mess - no matter what the issue. She never looks at me like I'm crazy when I get to her office to say that I think I have cancer again - can she please check me out, even though every time it turns out I am fine. She doesn't act irritated with me when I call her to ask, every month, are you sure I am probably fertile still? Can we check? She doesn't dismiss me every month when I call her and tell her I have a pain in my rib cage again - even though we both know this is related to my period. She doesn't act the least bit annoyed when every month I call her to ask - are you sure my lymph nodes were clear - are you sure it didn't spread, even though I know the answer. Not once has she ever made me feel like I wasting her time.

I have more gratitude for this woman than I can even describe, it is overflowing.