Latest / HAVE FAITH LET IT BEGIN® / A Doctor's Journey: Finding Gratitude and Purpose

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A Doctor's Journey: Finding Gratitude and Purpose · HAVE FAITH LET IT BEGIN®

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  Music.
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  Here is your host, Dr. E. Howdy, Croc Nation.
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  Dr. Tommy and Ellie here with you with another special Croc podcast.
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  Alongside, across the, through the oceans of space and the internet is my friend
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  and co-host, Angel Santana.
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  Angel, how are you, my friend? You know, not too bad, not too shabby.
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  We are moving forward and the Citizens United to Overcome Cancer is back on another Sunday.
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  It's such a great Sunday too, because this is the kickoff for our Thanksgiving week.
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  And I wanted to ask you, Angel, any particular Thanksgiving traditions that
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  you have with your family?
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  Well, yes. And I'm about to break tradition. So let me answer your question first.
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  Yes, tradition is rice and beans. We do the turkey.
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  Usually, instead of a turkey, we actually do a penil. but
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  this year angel is hosting his own mini
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  thanksgiving so i will be cooking rice and
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  beans and my wife is going to be cooking a ham let us
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  pray no kidding wow that's fabulous so
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  we'll try something new absolutely so angel
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  i i was you know getting ready to prepare this podcast and this is a very special
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  podcast right because it's the uh sunday right before thanksgiving and i was
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  looking at some of our old pre-thanksgiving podcasts and i think the one that
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  comes to mind is our famous podcast that we did with Ramon Ruda.
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  What a fascinating and intriguing and such respect to Ramon,
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  who did a beautiful, I want to say it was probably a one and a half hour,
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  two hour podcast on his life about having breakfast with President Carter and
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  what he did in the Bronx with the housing development.
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  And it was such a blessing to have him.
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  And that was, I think our first Thanksgiving podcast. And then we did one or
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  two, you know, basically extolling the virtues of gratitude,
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  right? Because Thanksgiving is all about being grateful.
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  And we showed, you know, with the data that gratitude can assist and help a
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  survivor actually have better outcomes.
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  And when I was planning this episode, I was thinking about doing another traditional gratitude episode,
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  basically how we can help our survivors find gratitude when there's probably
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  would be very difficult to find gratitude when you've just been diagnosed with cancer.
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  And you've heard of the expression, man makes plans and God laughs, right?
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  So that's exactly kind of what happened. God kind of tripped me up and said,
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  no, Tom, you're not going to be doing that podcast. You're going to be doing another podcast.
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  So this is a really wonderful story, a very profound story.
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  Maybe one of the most profound and moving moments that I've had actually in my entire career.
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  And as I said, we're going to have talk about this. This.
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  This couple, we're going to call them Jim and Deborah. And it starts on a beautiful fall day.
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  And Denise and I were going on a hike. We went up to Sam's Point.
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  Anybody in the Hudson Valley area who has ever heard or seen Sam's Point knows
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  exactly how beautiful it is.
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  You take a nice, beautiful walk up to the
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  top of this really rocky crag and you look over
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  the entire Hudson Valley and it's majestic and
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  the leaves were turning and everything was just gorgeous and
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  we went on to go to lunch at a little local restaurant that we like and and
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  i mentioned to denise that there was a patient that i wanted to stop in and
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  see on the way home i wanted to do a home visit or do an old fashioned house call.
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  And, and it just so happened again, God put our trajectory of where we were
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  and where we needed to go to have this patient in his wife's house exactly right on the way home.
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  So it was just almost as if it was meant to happen.
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  And I asked, you know, do you mind if we go to see, you know,
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  Jim and Deborah? And she said, no, let's, let's stop by.
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  So we told them waitress give us a couple of
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  give us a couple of sandwiches put them in a bag and we're
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  going to go bring him over and go see some nice people and
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  i wanted to give you a little background on jim and deborah so
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  unfortunately jim had stage four metastatic cancer
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  that had spread and pretty much had ravaged his body and he was getting near
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  the end and deborah was calling me and actually called me off and to try to
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  get some advice and see what she can do to make him more comfortable or just
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  trying to go through the process of the end of life process.
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  And since he was officially at this point, bed bound, I agreed to do the home visit.
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  So Angel, I want to take a little bit of a, of a tangent, little tangent first,
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  and take a quick look and talk about house.
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  Calls in general and kind of look at some of the things that I think about them
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  or some of the things that I think are advantageous.
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  So just to go on record, I'm a big fan of house calls. I'll tell you why in a moment.
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  I used to do many, many house calls very frequently when I was a younger doc.
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  And basically what I would do is I would pick up some food and I would go for a visit.
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  I would go to my brother-in-law's restaurant, get a tray of chicken form or
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  get some pizza and bring it over to the family and sit down and just kind of
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  get to know them or, you know, try to help them with whatever challenges that
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  they were going through.
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  And mainly these were patients that were on hospice, but not always.
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  Sometimes they were just patients that I really connected with.
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  And I just wanted to kind of get to know better or try to help out of a jam.
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  And I have to be honest with you. I know you probably would not have a hard
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  time believing this, but I actually love doing home visits. I actually love doing house calls.
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  And as I got busier and busier over the years, my house calls became fewer and fewer.
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  And now actually it's very unusual for me to do a home visit because I just
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  unfortunately don't have the time.
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  So as it relates to this story, you know, it just was basically put right in front of me.
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  It was laid right in front of me. It was almost as if it was a divine call for
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  me to make this house call.
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  So just a quick couple of advantages of what the home visit or house call has for the doctor.
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  The visit is on, as you can tell, it's a home visit. So it's on the survivor's
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  home court or home field, right?
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  So they feel more relaxed. They're more comfortable.
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  Also, there's no rough like in the office when you have, you know,
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  three survivors double booked and you have everyone who wants a piece of you
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  and the nurses want you to sign this or sign that.
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  And the therapist needs you to go check on a case or look at a CT.
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  So, you know, you don't have that when you go make a home visit.
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  In addition, survivors are surrounded by their support team.
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  And usually the spouses we've already met in the office, but we get to meet their children.
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  We get to meet their dogs and their pets. We get to meet their grandkids,
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  their friends, their neighbors.
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  And it's usually a very rewarding experience for everybody.
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  And the survivors are more open to share during a home visit.
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  They feel more comfortable. They open up. They're able to share more and you'll
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  gain invaluable insight, just not just into the survivor themselves,
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  but just into their physical environment,
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  their psychosocial environment, their economic environment, their resources,
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  the spirituality of the survivor that you're caring for.
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  All of this, you wouldn't get unless you walked into someone's home.
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  You'll also be in a far better position to advise them on situations that actually,
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  you you actually see stairs up going up to the third floor of a bedroom that
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  obviously they're not going to be using anymore or actually seeing where their
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  bathroom is in proximity or to see if the wheelchair can get around that curve.
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  Looking at their yard, if you want to advise them to be able to go outside and
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  sit down and have a glass of lemonade or iced tea or whatever and enjoy the beautiful fall colors,
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  see where their bedrooms are. Is the bed sufficient?
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  Are they going to get bed sores? Just basically to get a lay of the land angel, if you know what I mean.
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  And you'll now be viewed not just as their doctor, but also as their friend.
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  And that will strengthen your role as a healer.
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  And it will actually make that relationship very, very strong and very tight.
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  And you'll be able to benefit them more as far as them being compliant with what you recommend.
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  You could also leisurely take a deep dive into a survivor's fears and their
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  anxieties and their belief systems.
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  And their views on death, you could actually ask them these things and not feel
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  rushed or not feel pushed to have to get an answer in an office,
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  whereas you're sitting down and you could really get to read them quite well
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  on these very important matters that we don't usually have time to discuss.
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  And you'll also have a valuable opportunity to support and acknowledge and uplift the survivor's family.
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  They've been going through so much. I've always said that a survivor's family
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  has gone through everything that the survivor has gone through.
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  Maybe they weren't on the machine, but up to that point, pretty much everything else.
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  And they really need that reinforcement and that uplifting.
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  And they want also to feel that they could let go.
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  They want to have permission. It's almost as if they want to be rid of any guilt
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  that they might feel if their loved one does pass away while they're at home.
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  And what to expect when somebody does pass in the home.
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  And you have now a chance to meet the person and the survivor again.
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  Who they were before they became a survivor.
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  And I think that's maybe the most important point is that universally,
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  you know, people are surrounded by photos and mementos, you know, of a life well lived.
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  You can see pictures of them on vacation or in their occupation or at a life
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  event, like the birth of their children or the birth of their grandchildren.
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  And, and these photos and mementos, they show a hardly recognizable person to
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  the, to the person, to the survivor, to the patient that you know,
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  they, you know, in this case, Jim was a very muscular, strong,
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  happy, joyful, and proud man who was reduced not to that, unfortunately,
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  because of his struggle and his journey with cancer.
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  But sorry about the tangent, but let's get back to Jim and Deborah.
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  So Denise and I, you know, we find the house and we bring a beautiful box of
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  food in our hands and we go to, you know, the front door and we're greeted by
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  Debra and by her dog and we're petting her dog.
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  And we meet the daughter-in-law and they bring us into the living room and we
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  sit down and we have, you know, a lot of niceties and platitudes and things like that.
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  And then we start getting some updates, you know, what's going on with Jim,
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  what's happening in the house, you know, all of the hardships and things that are going on.
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  And, you know, We're petting the dog and getting these updates.
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  And then we've come to find out that hospice had been in to do the consult,
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  but the plan and the resources were just beginning to trickle in.
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  So everything wasn't in place yet, which is why there was such angst,
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  why Deborah had so many questions because they didn't have all of the teaching
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  that needed all that end of life teaching.
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  And they were very confused and they had a lot of questions.
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  So it was, it was a blessing that we were there and we just let them talk and
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  let them vent and let them cry.
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  And then I took her by the hand and I asked her if we could go see Jim and she
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  and I, and all of us went into the room and it was so sad because,
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  you know, Jim was now completely bed bound and he was reduced to, to really a bag of bones.
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  His eyes were sunken in with that faraway stare in his eyes.
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  He was soiled because Deborah couldn't
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  clean him up alone and help wasn't going to be due for a few hours.
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  And I think, Angel, it was at that moment that I made a quick decision to...
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  And I knew that Jim was dying, and I knew that he only had a few hours left
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  to live, and I refused to let him die without his dignity.
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  So I kicked everyone out of the room except for Deborah, and I told her to give
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  me some pot with towels, some soap, and some new sheets.
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  And then I did what I never thought myself capable of doing, Angel.
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  I single-handedly lifted him
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  out of bed. I held him with every ounce of strength and effort that I had.
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  And I held him like he was dangling from a cliff.
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  And if I let go, he was going to fall down the cliff.
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  And I told, and I held him really like I never held anything ever before in my life.
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  And I held him with the knowledge that if I dropped him, we would not be able
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  to get him back up, back into the bed.
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  And I asked God to give me the strength and the fortitude to complete this one
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  little task that I wanted to do.
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  And when I held him, Deborah quickly cleaned him.
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  We changed the sheets and with my muscles twitching and fasciculating,
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  and I was running out of power and running out of steam, we were able to position
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  him back to a clean and crisp and warm, dry bed.
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  And when our eyes met, Jim and I for the last time.
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  His stare wasn't distant anymore. It was focused.
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  And although he couldn't talk to me, his eyes told me everything.
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  His eyes told me, thank you.
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  And Deborah kissed him. And we went back to the living room to join everyone.
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  And Angel, I didn't make a big deal out of it. I didn't mention what happened
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  or what we did in that room.
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  I knew that the story wasn't about me or what I did or what I gave to Jimmy and Debra.
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  I knew that the story was about what Jimmy and Debra had given to me.
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  You see, Angel, in this world of being a doctor, many people see us as glamorous.
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  They see the glamour. They see the power.
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  They see the wealth. They see the influence.
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  They see a kind of mystique about someone who has the power at times to steal
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  life from the jaws of death.
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  But what people don't see is all the self-doubt.
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  They don't see the guilt.
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  They don't see the stress. They don't see the exhaustion.
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  They don't see our actual humanity with all of our blemishes and all of our shortcomings.
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  And when we need moments, we need moments like this.
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  We need moments like I was in, moments
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  like I spent with Jim and Debra to basically justify our sacrifice.
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  We need these moments to assuage our doubts.
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  We need these moments to strengthen our will and to continue our work.
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  We need these moments to purify our souls, angel and sanctify and justify our
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  efforts because on this coming Thursday at the Thanksgiving table.
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  When it's my turn to verbalize what I'm thankful for, after I express my gratitude
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  and thanks for my family and for my health, I'm going to thank God Almighty
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  for giving me the opportunity, the privilege,
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  the honor of being a doctor, because there is no other profession where people
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  would welcome you into their homes, a virtual stranger with their loved ones on their deathbed?
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  What other profession would people trust you enough to just feel safe to see
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  them at their worst moment in life?
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  What other profession gives you the opportunity to make such a profound impact in people's lives?
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  Acts so simple, so quick, yet acts that will be remembered for a lifetime.
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  I know, Angel, that God sent me to that house that day, not so I could save
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  a patient, but so a patient could save me.
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  Angel Santana, your thoughts? I think that given the fact that this is Thanksgiving week.
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  It's just a renowned, I have no words to put a spin on it other than the fact
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  that I'm just speechless about it because it's the first time I've heard the story.
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  You know, they say, love your neighbor. They say, honor thy neighbor.
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  They say, respect your neighbor. They say, do to others what God would do to us.
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  But here's the thing, this is a great example of not doing something because
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  you feel obligated, not doing something because of the fact that this is your
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  job in life, doing something because you wanted to do it.
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  And it's amazing to see one random act of kindness done in a professional and
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  a loving and enduring way to a friend whose last hours on earth went out in dignity.
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  Angel, thank you very much for those kind words. It was a tough podcast, but I have to tell you,
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  I struggled with this because I didn't want our survivor thrivers to think that
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  this was about me or about me bragging about doing something.
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  I really wanted them to know that being a doctor, there are times when our patients.
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  Infuse us with life and infuse us with a purpose and infuse us with a justification
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  for all of the things that we may miss out on because of our vow to take care of the sick.
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  And I think that one of the other slants that I wanted to kind of talk about
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  is the fact that so many of my
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  colleagues anger me, infuriate me when they complain about being a doctor.
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  And I hear it sometimes in the doctor's lounges or up on the floors,
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  or I might be talking to a colleague on the phone and I'll hear some,
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  you know, wisecrack about, you know,
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  you know, Oh my God, if I were only a stockbroker, if I was a lawyer,
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  or if I was an Indian chief.
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  And I think that, you know, Episodes like this or moments like this that will live in me forever,
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  even though I've been doing this for decades, this was such a profound moment
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  in my career, a profound moment in my life.
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  You know, that it, it really crystallized or recrystallized something that I already knew.
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  And that is what a privilege and honor it is to, to be a doctor,
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  to be someone that can heal.
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  And, and I want to now spin it back to our podcast, to our Croc Nation,
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  to our Survivor Thrivers.
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  It's especially edifying and invigorating for me to care for you guys.
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  You guys are going through so much. And I know that this is Thanksgiving week.
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  And I know that everyone from Madison Avenue to the television commercials,
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  to your families, they want you to put on a brave front.
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  They want you to act as if nothing is wrong, to act as if everything is okay,
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  to act like you're not angry that you've just gotten word that you have terrible,
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  you have a terrible, terrible nefarious disease and they want you to smile and
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  eat your turkey and shut the front door.
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  And I want to tell you that you have every right to do you.
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  You have every right to express whatever emotion you have.
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  And I want to tell you that on behalf of all the other doctors and nurses and
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  practitioners that care for you, we are so lucky to do what we do to be able
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  to help you, to be able to serve you.
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  It is an honor and a privilege to take care of you guys.
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  And that at the end of the day is what I'm thankful for.
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  I'll end this podcast with the way we end every podcast.
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  And fittingly, especially on today's podcast, we will end with our Croc prayer.
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  That's wishing all of our survivor thrivers a long, healthy,
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  happy, cancer-free life. God bless you.
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  God be with you. Peace.
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  Hey croc nation don't forget to like subscribe and share the podcast to your
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  friends visit our website crocvip.com we would love to hear your feedback.
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  Music.