[2022-06-10] A very pleasant lady
Today, I had my quarterly check-in with Dr. Faught of The Ottawa Hospital's gynecologic oncology team. It was a short call—just 2 minutes and 37 seconds—as I knew it would be. My blood work is good, my CA125 is stable, and I'm not experiencing any problems on my maintenance drug. The doctor's conclusion: keep doing what you're doing and we'll chat again in 3 months.
These are the best kinds of discussions to have with a doctor. The nothing-to-see-here ones. The no-surprises ones. The keep-doing-what-you're-doing ones.
Because I get my monthly blood work results in MyChart as soon as they're available, I know before any quarterly check-in with the oncology team that everything is in steady state. I'm never waiting on tenterhooks, wondering whether I'll get good news or bad news. Getting my results within hours or days of a test is empowering.
A few minutes after the conclusion of today's call, I received an email notification that I had a new report in MyChart. Once in the app, I saw the After Visit Summary, but then noticed a Notes tab. Despite the fact that I've been using the app for almost two years, I had not previously observed the Notes tab. So I started looking at the notes for various recent appointments, concluding that the really interesting stuff is in the notes, not the after visit summary.
For example, in the note for last week's appointment with Dr. Boushey, the surgeon who operated on me last November to address my perianal skin cancer, I learned that he referred to me as "a very pleasant 55-year-old lady." He concluded his report by writing, "Many thanks for allowing me to participate in this very pleasant lady's care and I am delighted she has done extremely well with no evidence of tumor recurrence to date.
It pleases me to be called a very pleasant lady, as this is exactly what I aspire to be. It reminds me of a story by Lillian Moore that appeared in yesterday's weekly newsletter by James Clear. As written in Reader's Digest, the story goes like this:
A few months after my husband and I moved to a small Massachusetts town I grumbled to a resident about the poor service at the library, hoping she would repeat my complaints to the librarian. The next time I went to the library, the librarian had set aside two bestsellers for me and a new biography for my husband. What's more, she appeared to be genuinely glad to see me.
Later I reported the miraculous change to my friend. "I suppose you told her how poor we thought the service was?" I asked.
"No," she confessed. "In fact—I hope you don't mind—I told her your husband was amazed at the way she had built up this small town library, and that you thought she showed unusually good taste in the new books she ordered."
This story illustrates the benefits of being pleasant—benefits that are enjoyed not only by the recipients of our friendliness but by us as well, as we often receive superior service.
I did thank Dr. Faught and his nurse, Jacinthe, for their tremendous service, remarking that I have felt very well supported.
