thanks

i love that feeling - being the bearer of good news. telling the alpha male body builder with leukemia that we can barely detect his disease - that his numbers are the lowest they've been in 4 years - that what we did appears to be working. it's worth a thousand bad days at work to see him well up, rise out of his chair and give me a big alpha male body builder hug. my feet left the ground. he hugged me so tightly that even through a pectoralis the size of my head, i could still hear his heart racing, pounding with incredulous joy. 'thank you. thank you', he kept repeating while balancing eyelids full of tears, willing them not to actually fall. he gave the doctor one of those testosterone-mediated aggressive handshake/back slap combos, but i know he really wanted to kiss him. silly men.

when things go badly, i always hear myself saying, 'i'm sorry', and patients race to say, 'it's not your fault', which of course i know. but when things go well, the same patients say thank you in such a way and with such an intensity - as if i had gone in there myself and tidied up their bone marrow with my own hands. they hold us responsible for the victories in a way that they don't hold us responsible for the failures. at least that's what it feels like. and even though i know i'm not responsible, i say, 'you're welcome'. the intense gratitude makes me feel like a superhero for a minute. that is until i go to leave and through a brief series of ungraceful events, catch my stethoscope on the door handle and almost hang myself, pretty much negating the whole superhero thing.

i love this feeling. i need to bottle it. and get a spritzer for the bottle. and apply liberally.