The eye doctor

Got it done, got it delivered. Okay, here’s the story:

Remember when I missed that second play date with Lyn?

An eye doctor who teaches at Stanford has a patient who is in my lupus group, who asked him if he would come and speak to us. He told her he’d be glad to. When he came, he clearly had spent many hours putting together a powerpoint presentation so we could see slides of what he was talking about, and written descriptions on more slides to help us remember the details.

At one point, he said, This is what iritis looks like–but you don’t have to worry about it, it’s very rare and only 4% or less of lupus patients get it.

I raised my hand and said, I’ve had it.

A few minutes later, he put up a slide of optic neuritis, again assuring us, But this is rare.

Guess who raised her hand slightly, with a slight nod of the head. He immediately came back with, That’s more common with MS, have you been tested for MS?

Spinal tap. Yup. Negative. I didn’t add that when the neurologist told me I had to hold absolutely still curled up afterwards for half an hour, I asked his nurse if I could knit; after hemming and hawing, she told me, well, that’s a new one, I guess so! So in the position I was told I had to stay in, I was holding my daughter’s sweater above my head, stitching away with it dangling onto my nose and thinking I must really be crazy to be doing this–but my Christmas deadline was looming… (My fellow knitters understand that one.)

Doctor V. said something about anti-inflammatories, and I shrugged, I go completely deaf on one dose of NSAIDs. Not an option. Oh. Steroids, then. Steroids don’t touch my lupus, I admitted. I told him, Remicade saved my life after my lupus spread to my GI tract, giving me symptoms of classic Crohn’s, but it gave me congestive heart failure; permanent chemo is it.

I saw the tears that leaped to his eyes, and I was suddenly glad I hadn’t mentioned the dysautonomia or the car accident to pile it on. I wanted to throw my arms around him and comfort him and tell him, it’s okay! Really, it is!

Because his tearing up had hit me right where I live. Someone knew. Someone who was a doctor, who knew what all those meant, who was there for me. It mattered to him. Thank you, sir, more than I can say.

At Stitches, I told Lisa Souza about that doctor and that day, and her reaction was to *give* me a hank of her silk/merino Max yarn she’d dyed in her Sky Drama colorway for me to go knit up for him as a thank you from her, too. To express her gratitude as well for his empathy and kindness in taking so much time to be there for patients he hadn’t even ever met before. For giving two hours out of his day, plus transportation and all that preparation time, answering every possible question for us. He’s a good one. She wanted to tell him so, too.

The Carlsbad scarf and story in the book that mentioned my eyes? Her silk in Sky Drama.

And so I made another Carlsbad scarf for this good man’s wife with Lisa’s generosity. It had to wait till all the Stitches knitting was done, it had to wait till the Lunasea Silkie for Andy got finished, but at last I got a chance to get to it.

And it is now where it needs to be. Being a tangible reminder of our gratitude–Lisa’s, mine, every patient’s in attendence at that lecture–for an eye doctor who truly sees and who was willing to give so freely of himself.

Thank you, sir. My best to you and your family.