The Good Doctor

I’m a big fan of the show, The Good Doctor. In fact if you would’ve asked me last tv season, I would’ve said it’s my favorite show. The season finale affected my perception of the show. I’ll admit it’s still my favorite, but it’s the most painful thing I can watch on TV. If you haven’t watched it, the premise is an autistic genius doctor trying to make his way in a hospital. That is Shaun. Shaun has a troubled past and has been saved by an older doctor who has been his mentor, Dr. Glassman. In last season’s finale, Dr. Glassman finds he has brain cancer. He tries to downplay it so as to not upset Shaun, who is easily upset. But Shaun pushes to find out it is a glioblastoma. Not only is it brain cancer,I’ve learned it is perhaps the worst cancer in terms of aggressiveness. Unfortunately I learned this because it is the type of brain cancer the doctors found my mom had when they discovered her tumor in January. Along with that was a lot of “don’t google it. You don’t want to read what’s on the internet about it.” So I didn’t for a long time. But I heard stories. Stories of how fast moving it is. How low the odds are. How it devastates even healthy people. With a successful surgery, radiation, chemo, and a new type of post radiation treatment, the best odds came to about 13%. The 13% that beat the odds probably hadn’t already battled breast cancer and probably hadn’t been weakened by 12 years of essential tremors. But surgery had the best possible outcome. They couldn’t see any latching in the follow up MRI. Radiation and the first round of chemo went well. Round 2 of chemo devastated her. She never lived at home after that. But she had positive follow up MRIs. We got the results of her last good MRI on August 16. I left that appointment to tell my dad the good news, and found him sitting at his kitchen table with his hospice nurse. He died about 28 hours after I told him about Mom’s clear MRI.

We knew that she would never be strong enough to withstand any further treatment. In fact, I remember several hours after being in the ICU after her brain surgery thinking we never should have done the surgery. We didn't know if she would wake up, and didn't know if she would be the same person we knew. I had known 5 days before she even went to the ER that something just wasn't right. I remember walking into her house on that Saturday afternoon and leaving the room to cry after trying to have a conversation with her. Something clearly was wrong. From that day, I have worried that we would not have Mom due to the things happening to her. But she did eventually wake up from the surgery and her personality didn't change. She was still the same person even though her ways of communicating had been hindered. She couldn't always tell you the word or name she wanted to say, but she knew what she was trying to say.

The Good Doctor was on TV tonight. Dr. Glassman, 6 episodes into this season, is at home, walking around having normal conversations and living on his own. Clearly, the TV glioblastoma is not quite as devastating as the real life kind. Mom can't talk to us anymore, she can't eat, and she can't move. But her eyes tell us she can still hear what we are saying and she still understands us. As she is in her bed with her family around her, I'm thankful we did the surgery in January. It gave us over 10 months of new memories--birthdays, family dinners, and even her 60th wedding anniversary. It was not without its painful moments, from my dad, my uncle, and my mom's cousin dying this summer, and many struggles as she dealt with the treatments and resulting pains and problems. One thing that I am most thankful for--we never lost Mom despite the challenges her body and brain have been facing. Her personality remained shining through her beautiful blue eyes. She has shown us happiness and laughter in her eyes, and she has shown us sadness and pain. She has been with us through it all.