More husband than doctor

I didn't want a doctor when my world fell apart. I'd already consulted Dr. Google and knew the differences between melanoma in situ (please, please let it be in situ) and stages one, two, three and four, which I read through tears so thick my four year old started spinning around me and singing, "let's be HAPPY!  No more being sad!"

Which is a lot easier when my mom, my too-young-for-this, healthy-as-can-be mom, hasn't just been diagnosed with cancer, staging undetermined.

I didn't want a doctor. I wanted my husband to come home and forget everything he knows about cancer and mortality rates and treatments, about pathology and incisions and turnaround times and make me feel better.

He did.

He held me and I cried. He took the boys outside to play so I could cry some more. He made dinner. He bathed our kids and got them ready for bed, and then he went back to work.

Between patients, he called me. "I have a fracture coming in soon, but I wanted to know how you're doing," he'd say. "I love you. Your mom will be fine. Try to sleep, and you'll feel better in the morning."

And in the morning, when things were a little better, a text: "I'm headed to clinic, but I love you. Your mom will be fine. Try to keep your mind off it. We'll know more soon."

And in the afternoon, when I was doing a lot better: "I'm studying now. Call me if you need me and I'll come home."

And a few hours later when, suddenly, I wasn't: "Leaving now. I'll be home soon."

Residency doesn't allow time off to comfort your wife while she's waiting for pathology to call, and while he was able to sneak away the first day, he was Q2 for the next week. But when he couldn't hold my hand, he held my heart together with prayers and sweet words, and day by day we got through it. And when we found out that she was just a a single surgery and an awful, beautiful scar away from being cancer free, he comforted me again while I shook with relief and disbelief, because how can I be so lucky that my mom, who for a week I was sure would miss my sons' first days of school, their baptisms, their high school graduations, their weddings, was just at stage one and was going to be okay. And my husband. My husband.

He's a great resident. On his way to becoming an exceptional surgeon.

He is an even better husband.