“50 years I have been a doctor. I may be retiring now but that doesn’t mean the end of my life. I have much to live for and much to share.”
It was a warm night at my retirement party. As I was giving my speech I had a message to deliver of love and respect. There was a familiar face in the crowd. A Woman I had not seen sense she was a teenager.
“Tonight I would like to share a particularly memorable story of a man I have great respect for. He showed a kind of devotion and caring most people say is lost in this society. 30 years ago I was working in the emergency ward when a couple came in…”
***
It was dark in the ward. An ambulance showed up paramedics were running in with a vixen on a stretcher, her husband ran in behind paramedics, tears in his eyes. He screamed down the hall with a hysterical voice.
“What’s wrong with my wife?!”
The paramedics ran with him as doctors came from left and right, including myself. We rushed her into an operating room.
“What do we have here?”
“Husband called 911, said he was having dinner with his wife when she stood up to go get a glass of wine she passed out.”
“Anything else?”
“Husband said she had been complaining of pain in her chest near the bottom of her ribcage.”
“Do a biopsy on her liver send it to the lab for tests. Put her on life support until they get back.”
I left the room to console the husband and see if I could attain anymore info.
***
“I didn’t know much about the patient’s medical back round so I went to ask her husband. That man was caring beyond that which I had ever known. He knew everything about his wife.”
***
“Can you tell me if your wife has any medical history?”
“She doesn’t have any family disorders. Her father had kidney stones but that’s the worst thing in her family that any of them had, and he’s the only one who’s had it. She doesn’t have allergies.”
“Well that helps us a lot. So what ever she has can’t be hereditary and we can use what ever medication is required. Did your wife describe the pain she was in? When did it start?”
“She couldn’t describe it other then painful. It started when we were driving home; I had picked her up from work. Then during dinner she just grabbed her side groan loudly and passed out.”
“Thank you. This information has been useful, you may end up playing a big part in helping us save your wife.”
***
“Speaking to that man then, I had no idea the meaning of the words I had told him, nor did I know just how true they were.”
***
After several hours of testing we confirmed a very dreadful truth. His wife had a tumor in her liver and it was a big one. It wasn’t cancerous thank god, but due to its size it could not be removed unless she had a full transplant. And we could not keep her alive for long. A month at most. Day and night her husband stayed at her bed side. After weeks no liver had become available and her husband had two options. Let her die quick by pulling the plug, or drag it out.
One day at the hospital he called me in to his wife’s room. I greeted him. Over the weeks we had come to a first name basis.
“How are you holding up Carl?”
“I heard some very good news, a lucky break for Bethany.”
He was sitting at he bed side and he was back on to me, he had his hand together but I could not see what he was doing.
“What’s the good news?”
“An organ donor, with the same blood type as my wife.”
“Should we prep her for surgery or is it being delivered?”
“No. It’s in the building, I would prep her now we can finally get this nightmare over with, she can return to living the way she always did.”
“I’ll get the nurses we’ll have her prepped in no time.”
I was turning to leave when he called back to me
“Doc. Be quick.”
I turned to see him kneeling and turned toward me a gun in his hands pointed up ward toward his head. Tears poured down his cheeks, he squinted hard and he started to squeeze the trigger. I leaped towards him but I was to late.
***
“Carl’s blood type was AB- his wife Bethany had the same. He took his life to save hers. The surgery was successful and within a few hours, Bethany awoke for the first time in weeks. Can you guess what the first words she said to me were? Every day I remember them, as vivid as I will remember these tears falling down my face. *sniff*. The first thing she said was ‘where is Carl. I feel like I haven’t kissed him in a lifetime.’ As a doctor I always tried to keep my composer and be strong for patients when delivering bad news but when she said that I just broke down. *sob*. Today Bethany lives on, she still carries the last gift her husband ever gave her. She carries it with dignity and she is proud to say that she remains a widow, she can tell everyone that Carl gave his life for her, and she can easily give up hers for his memory.”
I looked down at Bethany in the crowd and she was crying too, the whole crowd was.
“I would like you all to meet Bethany; she is a living testament to what it means to have a heart. Beth. Please if you would.”
I held out my hand and she stood came up to the stage and took it, I helped her up on the stage. She spoke one phrase to the crowd, the only light word spoken that night, dampening the whole seriousness of the speech. So like her to bring a smile to an old mans face.
“Our dear friend Bob forgot to mention that sense that day, I have never eaten liver again.”