Mark Bulgutch - Thats Why Im a Doctor: Physicians Recount Their Most Memorable Moments

Mark Bulgutch

Physicians Recount Their Most Memorable Moments

Copyright 2020 Mark Bulgutch

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior permission of the publisher or, in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from Access Copyright, .

Douglas and McIntyre (2013) Ltd.

P.O. Box 219, Madeira Park, BC , V 0 N 2 H 0

www.douglas-mcintyre.com

Photos courtesy the individual doctors except where otherwise noted

Edited by Betty Keller

Cover and text design by Shed Simas / Ona Design

Printed and bound in Canada

Douglas and McIntyre (2013) Ltd. acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Government of Canada, and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Title: Thats why Im a doctor : physicians recount their most memorable moments / Mark Bulgutch.

Names: Bulgutch, Mark, editor.

Description: Edited by Mark Bulgutch.

Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20190231696 | Canadiana (ebook) 2019023170 X | ISBN 9781771622523 (softcover) | ISBN 9781771622530 ( HTML )

Subjects: LCSH : PhysiciansCanadaAnecdotes. | LCSH : MedicineCanadaAnecdotes. | LCGFT : Anecdotes.

Classification: LCC R 705 . T 43 2020 | DDC 610.971dc23

As with most things in life, its easier to write a book when youre happy. And I am. Just about all the time. Thats because of the four people closest to me in the world. My wife Rhonda is not a doctor, but she has kept me physically and mentally healthy for almost forty-four years. Her intuition about medical things is uncanny. She knows when Im sick before I know it.

My first-born daughter is Melissa. She once cried after a visit to the doctor because she didnt get a needle. She thought doctors always gave needles, and she was looking forward to it.

My younger daughter Jessica has visited doctors way too often. Stitches here and there. Broken bones here and there. They always patched her up so she could go injure something else.

My granddaughter Reid enjoys playing with the same doctor kit her mother used to play with. She tells me she does not want to grow up to be a doctor, but its early yet.

There isnt a day that goes by when I dont feel blessed that they are in my life.

The first person who ever laid hands on me, even before my mother, was a doctor. It was Yom Kippur, the most important day on the Jewish calendar. And the doctor was Jewish. So maybe he didnt want to be in the hospital that day, but when my mother went into labour, he got the call and he did what he was supposed to dohe took care of his patient (my mother, not me).

He pulled me into the world, and since it was still before 11:00 a.m., perhaps he went back to the synagogue feeling pretty good about things. I hope so.

Since that day Im pleased to say my relationship with doctors has been just the way I like itdistant. I had the usual childhood checkups and illnesses looked after by the family doctor (who made house calls), but nothing serious. I still have my tonsils and appendix.

In the summer between high school and university I had a job at a meat packing plant. In the last few days on the job I managed to cut off the tip of a finger working the meat slicer. One of the supervisors at the shop drove me to the hospitalthe same hospital where I was born. Once they stopped the bleeding, the plastic surgeon had a look and said to me, What kind of career are you planning? Do you think youll need that finger?

I wasnt sure if he was kidding. But if he was, I wasnt in the mood. I told him I was going to be a journalist, and the injured finger was one of the two I used to hunt and peck when I typed.

Okay, he said. Then wed better fix it up.

And he did.

Ive been two-finger typing ever since, through a long and successful career.

I saw several doctors a few years after I finished university. We were trying to figure out why I had pain in my knees. It took a long while before someone diagnosed Crohns disease. Thats a disease of the bowel, which is a bit of a ways from the knees, which is why the diagnosis took so long. Knee pain is what they call an extraintestinal complication of Crohns.

Once we had a name for the problem, I was referred to a gastroenterologist (a specialist in the gastrointestinal tract). I went through a couple of them pretty quickly. I left the first one behind when I moved from Montreal to Toronto. Then the first Toronto specialist didnt do a very sharp job of tracking the diminished level of iron in my blood.

I found that out from my family doctor, Bill Wishinsky. He called me at work one night just before 10 oclock. (I worked from about 11:00 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. in those days.)

He said, How are you feeling?

I said, Im feeling just fine. Why wouldnt I?

He said, Well, I just got the results of your blood test, and either theyre wrong or youre dead. Lots of doctors, it seems, are would-be comedians. He went on, The iron count is so low. Are you sure you feel fine?

He was so worried he told me to go the emergency department of a downtown hospital on my way home. He was going to arrange for a blood test there.

I showed up at the hospital around midnight, had a blood test, and it indeed showed that my iron count really was very low (common with Crohns) and my gastroenterologist had missed it.

My family doctor told me to dump the specialist. So I did.

Ive been with my third gastroenterologist for more than thirty years. His name is Fred Saibil. And hes part of why this book exists.

One of the pleasures of Crohns disease is the need for regular colonoscopies. Pretty much every year, Fred would schedule me for the procedure. Id drink some vile-tasting liquid to ensure an empty intestine, report to the hospital the next morning, and be wheeled into a room where Fred would smile at me before knocking me out so he could root around in my insides. Hed write a note for me to read when I woke up. It usually said something like, It looks like a dog chewed your guts. Theres that comedic doctor streak again.

Fred prescribed drugs, hoping to make things better. They never did, but I got used to the symptoms and the disease never really stopped me from doing anything I wanted to do, either as a journalist or as a husband and father. But Fred kept booking colonoscopies and reporting how bad things looked. After more than twenty years of this, he persuaded me that it was time to take out the diseased part of the bowelmy first (and only) surgery.

The good news is that now that Im missing most of my colon, I dont need colonoscopies. But Im not entirely off the hook. Fred still inspects my insides. Its called a sigmoidoscopy or a flex sig for those of us in the know. I still drink vile-tasting liquid to get ready, but not as much of it, and theres no pain involved so I can be awake for the procedure.