Hi There...
You probably thought I fell off the face of the earth because I haven't written in so long.
First, I went on vacation to the north end of Vancouver Island. We went fishing for a few days and caught some great fish. The one above is a 24 lb King salmon. Mmmmm.
We had a great time away, then came home and 4 days later my dog Boogie died. She was 17 and had a great life, and a quick death, so I can't complain. But it's still hard. She was a very smart dog, and almost seemed like she knew what you were thinking sometimes. Emotional rollercoaster is a cliche that in my case was a very real thing - from a super high to a pit of a low in less than a week. The amazing thing is that as humans we can bounce back from such things, or at least most of us can. Some people get stuck in the "victim" role, and whether they like the attention they get when they're ill, or whether they're addicted to pain meds, or whether they just don't know any other way to live, there are some women (and probably plenty of men, I just don't see them as patients) who continue to feel subject to the whims of their disease.
I had the great pleasure to spend a night with the Seattle Endo Group at one of their meetings last month. About 15 women, all with different stories and different variations of the same disease, came together to support each other, and to learn about the disease that was affecting them and making their lives less productive, less pleasurable, and all in all less tolerable than they should be. I was proud to be able to be a part of this, a yearning to understand and conquer endo, not continue to be victimized by it. I was also proud of them, because they were doing something, both for themselves (educating ) and for others (supporting, caring, loving). Medicine is not a one-way dictum anymore, where the patient is a supplicant at the feet of the great physician, humbly requesting healing, and the physician gives the patient his treatment plan. No questions, no options, just do this and come back in a month. No, medicine today requires a commitment by both parties. A commitment by the physician to educate the patient about their disease, give them options, and help them understand why it's important to treat the disease in one way or another. The commitment from the patient is different but just as necessary. Patients must be an active participant in their healing - they must ask questions, keep track of how they feel and what things make them better or worse, they should be willing to try certain things that have been recommended to them, and most of all they need to be motivated to get better. Some of you will read this and think "what a jerk, to think that some patients don't want to get any better." I'm not suggesting that a majority of patients fall into this category (most of our patients don't, that's why it's so gratifying to help them get better), but there are a few that do. Patients who are motivated and engaged will come in to see me with a list of questions, they'll consider things I tell them so that we can come to an agreement about the plan of attack to get them better. That's what life is all about - working together to help people understand their disease and feel that they have some control over it, rather than feeling helpless and hopeless.
Thanks for reading my ramblings - sometimes I get philosophical and I apologize if it gets to be too much. But, the emotional side of healing is an important thing to tap into, both for me, and for my patients. I want them to know that I care about them, not just to be able to whack disease out of their body (of course I like that - I'm a surgeon), but what really makes me happy is seeing them being able to return to a normal life, going back to college, starting a family, going to cooking school, pursuing their dreams. That's what keeps us going when the cases are long, when our backs get tired, and our feet are sore. That's what real medicine is all about.
Just to remind you, Dr. Redwine and I are starting a series of "Webinars" this fall. Starting on 10/25, we'll give live presentations over the internet, with time for questions and answers afterwards. You will be able to send in your questions over instant messaging type software, and we'll answer as many as we can. We'll do 3 Webinars this fall, then start up again in January. There will be a place to leave your suggestions for what we can do better, so please feel free to leave constructive comments that will help us tailor future talks to what people are interested in. Our goal is education, and we want women with endo to be knowledgeable about their disease and treatment options so they don't have to suffer through useless surgeries and miserable hormone treatments.
We're trying to help you, so we hope you'll join us. There's a link to sign up on the front page of our website.
Take care, and have a great week.
Dr. Mos
