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Okay, about the Easter vigil.

I am in the choir and thus I sit in the front rows as that’s how it’s done. Last night, four folks got confirmed (I thought the Bishop or something had to confirm people but last night there were no bishops anywhere?) and one person got baptized.

The priest called those to be confirmed by name and for one he called, we’ll use an alias...Joe Blow.

Just as soon as I heard Joe Blow’s name I looked to my seat mate. “Is that DOCTOR Joe Blow? Cause I think that’s my husband’s FORMER infectious disease doctor.”

My seat mate nodded yes and whispered that he was also HER husband’s doctor.

The story here is that I oncit phoned up this Doctor Joe Blow and told his nurse, nastily and with hate, that he almost killed my husband and that we would not be coming back to him and that for the follow-up on my husband’s brain infection we would travel north to Wilmington for an hour and a half drive rather than go to his patient-killing self.

Yes I did.

Of course I am not proud of this but the background: Husband had a brain infection, a very rare thing anywhere but really rare in this backwoods swamps of Delaware. Husband was diagnosed, given anti-seizure meds, antibiotic therapy and we were assured he would be okay.

Only it didn’t turn out quite that way. Husband kept having severe seizures. I kept taking him to emergency rooms. The doctors squabbled and argued amongst themselves. The Neurologist said that brain infection diagnosis was bullcrap, that husband had cancer and needed help upstate and to get out of this berg.

I did, of course, phone Dr. Joe Blow and tell him what the Neurologist told me as hell, we were just patients, we didn’t know what to think. I sure didn’t want my husband to die while the doctors argued like ladies on The View over his treatment and diagnosis.

Husband kept having awful seizures all while the doctors squabbled until finally he had a seizure that lasted an hour and a half. The backwoods hospital docs threw up their hands and said to take him upstate, that there was nothing more they could do.

Husband was in a coma for six days, suffered kidney failure, lost some of his vision....was in ICU for eleven days, had to be put in a rehab hospital for three weeks, all because of the damn seizure mind you. His brain infection was responding well to therapy. One of those brain lesions was pressing on his brain stem, however, and the seizures didn’t stop until the antibiotic therapy got it down to the point where it was not pressing. With proper amounts of anti-seizure meds that all could have been avoided.

I was bitter. Husband lost so much of his life but thank God he did live.

Once he got out of hospital there was need for follow-up care. Dr. Joe Blow’s nurse phoned me up as recall that Joe Blow was husband’s original Infectious Disease doctor and the rehab hospital sent the files to him for follow up.

That’s when I told him, AND that joke of a Neurologist, AND all the other boob doctors he dealt with before he almost died, to go to hell, that we’ll get in the Jeep and go north where they docs really graduated from medical school.

So the new ID doc, during our first appointment, sat down with us and told us he was happy to work with us (this was the doc the hospital in NewarK Delaware assigned to husband) but he felt we were being very unfair to Dr. Joe Blow.

“He called me up. He was very upset. He said he had diagnosed you correctly and I want to tell you that he did.”

I wasn’t buying it. I thanked the northern ID doc and said we’d remain with him. I also found a decent Neurologist in Dover, also a bit of a drive but I really felt husband was not given the quality of treatment more experienced docs could give him...being kind here.

Everytime we visited that northern ID doc, and we had to go back about five times, he’d tell us that Dr. Joe Blow was really upset, that he phoned up again to check on husband’s recovery, to please not hold him accountable for husband’s subsequent problems.

I got to thinking about it, frankly, and the northern ID doc was right. Dr. Joe Blow’s diagnosis of a brain infection WAS correct and his treatment protocol was EXACTLY the same as the northern doc’s. I felt bad about how I lashed out at his nurse when she phoned (I am sure she told him what I said, but of course) and I pondered what it must be like to be a doctor and have a patient feel like you almost killed them with your care. All this and to be absolutely innocent.

Not that the Neurologist was so innocent. He was the arrogant fellow who insisted husband had brain cancer, he was the one who overlooked husband’s seizures as it was HIM the hospital called during the many emergency room trips. Said Neurologist NEVER increased husband’s anti-seizure meds (he now takes TRIPLE the original amount although his seizures are now long past, plus another anti-seizure med) and husband had a seizure right in the guy’s office for God’s sake!

But I was confused and torn, please understand. I have a conscience and I often wondered if I would ever get the chance to tell that local ID doc how I regret the hurtful things I said and yeah, how I appreciate the concern he showed for my husband.

He was never a bad fellow, understand. He would phone up husband and ask him how he was doing. He did assure me that the Neurologist was wrong about brain cancer, that Neurologists see brain cancer everywhere.

whatever the background, he gave my husband good service, he accurately diagnosed the problem, and he cared. I hurt him deeply but via the background above, please understand. It was a stressful, trying time.

So Dr. Joe Blow got confirmed last night, imagine that.

He was in the front row, his confirmation name is Luke.

All I could think of was what a good man he must be. He cared so much for my husband with those pleading phone calls to the northern ID doc. Now a doctor, imagine this as I sometimes think they all consider themselves God, was professing his faith in the Catholic church by being confirmed, by wearing the cloth of confirmation. And I’m not sure, but I think this guy used to be a Muslim. At least, during my anger moments I used to call him one. His name and looks would suggest it.

So yes I did.

As I exited the church, there he was, in the front pew, right on my exit route. I stopped and told him my name. Of course how could he forget the name FISH and possibly the only case of brain infection he might ever have. Hell, the northern ID doc only had ten his whole life and he’s up there in Wilmington with thirty year’s experience.

I told him how sorry I was for what I said. I congratulated him for his confirmation. He asked about my husband. He said he would love to have us come back to him, which I said I would do.

So that’s the story. I’ve said enough. I’ll shut up now.