I am now a resident of Lewisburg, West Virginia. A West Virginian. I have one more trip back west just to load up the moving truck. I can see how so many authors would find this area an easy place to write. It is quiet and with such beautiful scenery at every season. As if on cue for Christmas we are now dosed with a generous topping of white to highlight the decorations that were just waiting for the right effect to top it all off.
It is Sunday, but David is “on call”. For those of you who are not in the medical field, that means if there is anyone who shows up at the hospital day or night needing a Neurologist, his phone will ring and then most likely he will have to climb out of his nice warm bed, go out into the frozen night to see this patient. Seizures and strokes are like babies, they usually come in the night.
Today he got a call to go see a little 7 year old girl who had a seizure. As he left our nice quiet Sunday afternoon behind I didn’t mind at all for my loss of having my husband taken from me for a while. I like spending our quiet time together. We don’t get a lot of it these days, but as I kissed him goodbye and watched him go I couldn’t help but be so grateful that he was going to be able to take care of this little girl. I remembered my own feelings as a parent of my own little girl about that same age when she suffered her first seizure and how helpless and afraid I felt. I wanted to tell the parents of this little girl that they had a great doctor who would be helping their daughter and to tell them that everything was going to be ok.
With only a week before Christmas they were probably busy with gifts and Santa wishes yesterday. Their biggest worry was most likely how to get her to clean up her room. Today all of that was put second as they sat in the hospital waiting while the ER doctor phoned my husband for his special expertise. This year their Christmas wish list would be only for a healthy daughter. Christmas takes on a different view when you are married to someone who takes care of the sick. I am proud of him for his unwavering compassion, his diligence in seeking out the solutions to complex medical problems, for his willingness to give up his comfort and time off to take care of the most fragile patients without complaint.
