“But.”

“I have seen the drugs Karen was taking. Have you ever had any surgery.”

“Yes. I have had three babies by c-sect.”

“Do you remember the pain the first day?”

“They gave me meds for it but when they wore off it got pretty bad.”

“Karen was having continuous pain in her arm at nearly the level you had when the meds wore off. The pills were partially controlling it. She was taking other drugs that would almost certainly shorten her life, possibly as much as twenty years. If you had continuous pain in an arm or leg that wasn’t working, surgeries were risky, the drugs would probably cause you to die young, what would you do?”

“Well. I wouldn’t have my arm cut off.”

“If you were in continual pain, wouldn’t you?”

“Well.”

“And if your doctor didn’t seem to want to listen, then what?”

She lowered her head. “I guess it isn’t good to talk till you have spent a moon in someone else’s moccasins.”

He smiled. “Maybe that is a good thing for all TV anchors to realize.”

She looked up and nodded.

“Now before someone says the doctor she saw wasn’t doing his job, let me say this. Yesterday I would probably have pressed to do the surgery. I would have pressed her to save that arm. In fact, there is no doubt in my mind, I am sure of it. I got the doctor’s name and looked him up in the register and checked his credentials. I haven’t met him but I have heard him present in a video seminar. He is impressive, his technique and knowledge are broad and deep. He is a doctor who in his field of expertise I would trust a family member’s care to without any reservations. In fact on the west coast there are only a dozen or so that are his peers and there are none I would rate better. I don’t find fault with him. I have walked in his moccasins. My only hope is that he will see what I have seen in the last twenty four hours. He is a great surgeon. I think he can be a greater one. I know that with what I have seen in the last day I can be better.”

“But to cut off an arm that could be saved.”

“That is exactly the thought of me, the doctor here and if you polled a hundred good doctors yesterday you would have gotten that same reaction. But look at it in another way. I’m not an Oncologist but they at times let patients decide on whether to have chemo, surgery or radiation that they know have a good possibility of extending life so that the patient can decide if they want to have the procedure and live longer or if they want to just live out with they have without it because of the invasiveness of the procedure. What appalls everyone is a lay person who is visible made that decision without her doctor. I wish her doctor had helped make that decision. It had to be a very lonely time for her. I guarantee you that a patient I am seeing with her situation, which is very rare, would be at least advised that there are options to surgery, not ones that would be gone into lightly but alternatives. I will have to swallow hard, my voice may fail me, but I will make sure that the person knows that there is an alternative.”

“And you would participate in the amputation? How can you do that.”

“Orthopedics usually do the amputations. I have only assisted. I have found that hard to face, it is my failure to fix the limb in a sense that brings it to that. But if the patient wished me to be there I think I would. If there was no medical reason for me to be there and the other surgeon allowed it I would drop in as a friend.”

Karen: Chapter One – The Attack

Karen Chapter 26: Mom and Dad Face Reality

Karen Chapter 28 – Mom and Dads Little Girl