The Unwinding of the Miracle - Julie Yip-Williams Page 0,27

and roasted vegetables, which was incidentally entirely anticancer and antidiabetes compliant. We were in the midst of a conversation that had been going on for two hours, one that had begun in the lobby of my gym, where Dr. C. had met me, one that would go on for another two hours as we walked through the streets of Chinatown. Our conversation was about everything. We first talked about my cancer diagnosis, how it had come to be, potential medical causes, my CEA level, possible future surgeries, the merits of going outside New York City for additional treatment, her belief in my ability to beat this cancer because, in her words, there is nothing typical about me. We talked about Dr. C.’s recent trip to Uganda, the reverse culture shock she was experiencing, and her plans for the future.

It was in the middle of this conversation that I blurted out, completely unbidden, “You know what? I’m really, really happy right now.”

Even I was a little surprised at this declaration. How is it possible to have Stage IV colon cancer and feel for even a second, much less the many moments of that afternoon, the kind of carefree joy that would prompt me to make such a statement?

Much of it had to do with Dr. C. herself. Indeed, there is nothing about Dr. C. that is remotely typical, either. She had returned only two days earlier from six months in Uganda, volunteering at a hospital with 550 beds to which people would travel for days and at which patients would sell a cow to pay for surgery. She showed me pictures of the hospital nursery, which was nothing more than a table where babies lay, with their mothers’ blankets wrapped around them as the only proof of maternity (for there were no ID bracelets). She told me crazy stories about how she had sawed off the gangrened arm of a pregnant woman who had been gored by a bull and how she had to remove a mother’s dead fetus as well as the remnants of her ruptured uterus after a failed home delivery, all under harrowing conditions where anesthesia, electricity, resources, and expertise were in short supply. Dr. C. had shut down her practice of twenty-five years, during which it felt like she had delivered nearly every child in Tribeca, in order to go to Uganda as part of a commitment to serve underserved areas at home and abroad, a commitment she had made when graduating from medical school.

When she closed her practice and left for Uganda, I doubted that I would ever see her again, because it was clear that she had no intention of returning to New York. I had written her an email a couple weeks earlier to let her know about my diagnosis, not entirely expecting her to respond. It was only upon her return to the United States that she read my news and contacted me immediately to convey her shock. I asked to see her then, told her in fact that I absolutely needed to see her.

Dr. C. has, since the day I met her, always made me feel safe. She diagnosed me with gestational diabetes during both pregnancies and forced me to keep (and email to her) a daily food journal that recorded everything I consumed as well as my blood sugar levels at specific times each day. Just as she did for all her other patients, she showed up at the hospital the moment I arrived (as opposed to the end of labor, as so many other obstetricians do). She, not a nurse, held me when the anesthesiologists administered the epidurals. She coached me through the pain of labor and delivery, and was essential to the healthy arrivals of Mia and Belle into this world. As a solo practitioner, she did not take a single vacation in the twenty-five years prior to closing her practice, and in return for her devotion to her patients, her patients have an unwavering loyalty to her.

I know my friends who are also former patients would have loved the opportunity to spend an afternoon with Dr. C. The truth is that the only reason Dr. C. took an afternoon out of her limited time in New York to talk to me was that, as unlikely as it is, I have cancer. If she were still practicing and I didn’t have cancer, we would never have talked about our lives in such an honest and open manner,