Tender-Loving Kindness

If TLC is a wonderful thing, then TLK is even more wonderful. I was recently a recipient of tender-loving kindness. .

It started as a routine blood test last April. Of all things my doctor called me at home the next night  to express his concern.  He told me that he was ordering a scan to confirm his suspicions about my thyroid and parathyroid function. That scan was the first of a dozen  scans and tests to determine what was wrong with my thyroid and parathyroid, and what needed to be done to correct the problem. Through the process a large tumor was discovered on my thyroid and suspected abnormalities on my parathyroid.  And surgery was scheduled.  It would be a total thyroidectomy and partial parathyroidectomy. The ENT surgeon gave me some unlikely but possible bad outcomes.  Those outcomes included, but were not limited to, the inability to speak and the inability to breathe without a tracheotomy ever again  There was also the outside chance that the tumor would be malignant. The surgery was more than an appendectomy and less than  open-heart surgery, but it was serious surgery.  I entered the hospital two weeks ago.  The surgery took a little more than four hours.

I don’t remember all of the particulars of the medical procedures over the past several weeks. I don’t remember all  of the reasons  certain things were done.  What I do remember is how kind people were to me. Besides the loving-kindness of family and close friends, there was the kindness of strangers.  There was the kindness of doctors, nurses, anesthesiologists, lab technicians and others. These people went above and beyond to be helpful and to make me as comfortable as possible through the process.  A number of work-related people expressed their concern. But I especially appreciate my family and friends who through calls and texts stayed in constant contact with my wife and me to check on me and inquire of my welfare. We lost count of the number of people, including people willing to drive great distances, who offered to sit with her through the surgery. I lost count of the number of people  who checked on us before, during and after the surgery to be sure that  I was doing okay.

I’m very thankful that I can speak.  And that I can breathe.  I’m deeply grateful that the tumor was benign.  So much could have gone wrong that didn’t go wrong.  My surgeon, who had been both professional and kind through the entire weeks-long process, had assured me that he was not going to let anything bad happen to me.  And he didn’t. I have a permanent scar below my Adam's apple, but that is certainly something I can live with. 

Many of you know  me and many of you do not.  If you know me, maybe you too would have liked to have expressed your love and concern.  But you had no way of knowing till now what was going on.  But what we both  know is that there are people around us who desperately need to know that somebody cares about them, that we care about them.  I plan to be that person more than I ever have been.  Who knew that a text, call or visit could mean so much.  I got a text just a few minutes ago from one of those "work-related" people who hoped to see me at a business function coming up soon. And I assured her that she will. That was a kind thing to do.  

I will eventually forget about the particulars of the medical process, but I will never forget the kindness of strangers and friends. Tender-loving care. Tender-loving kindness.  "And now  faith, hope and kindness abide. But the greatest of these is kindness." .