Physician, Heal Thyself: Pt.Vla The Great and Powerful Dr of Alz

Did I ‘happen’ to mention that somewhere in the middle of the running from Dr A to Z that Miss Cathy started to regain some of her eyesight?

Yes, well, one day she called me into her bedroom and proudly told me what time it was from looking at the clock across the room from where she lay in bed.

That might not sound like much but considering that just days before she couldn’t recite the correct sequence of numbers on the clock (let alone see them), we took it as nothing short of a miracle (me more so than her because what she didn’t know was that Dr GG had just pulled me aside during our first visit to his office and told me to brace myself for the possibility that her condition could be permanent-or worsen).

Mom took my hand and looked up at me, her face flush with pride, eyes innocent as a young girl when she confessed that she had been quietly praying to God everyday for help and she was convinced that He had done what no doctor was able to do.

“Sounds good to me!” I said.

I’m not particularly religious, I consider myself a spiritual person, but I’m also a pragmatist so I was just thankful to whoever turned the lights back on in her brain.

I was happy to give God the credit, none of the doctor’s had been able to do anything so far.

But our celebration was short-lived when she started to regress then rebound back from confused and unable to see well to almost normal again.

So, it seemed that we’d just had a reprieve before we entered a new “confused today, clear tomorrow” phase of her disease.

I explained all of that and more to the program manager of the Georgetown University Medical Center as I tried to convince her that Miss Cathy had been through enough.

We’d (“I”) already been talking for quite some time but (to her credit and my surprise) she stayed on the phone with me, patiently listening as if she didn’t have anything else to do (which I knew couldn’t possibly be the case but I was grateful none the less).

She told me that as it is they were completely booked and Dr T had a full schedule so it would have to be a ‘special’ case for them to consider making room for a new client.

“I know that everybody thinks their loved one is special but we simply can’t take everyone that wants to get into the Clinic.”

“Hmm”, I thought, “did I think Miss Cathy was special?”, the word ‘special’ lighting up in my brain like one of those huge, neon signs in a Baz Lurhmann film.