I’ve never been able to shake the haunting feeling of this specific house call because of the significance it would take on later in my own life – and it reminds me, of course, that even doctors can meet the same inevitable fate of becoming patients.
When I tried to tend to the diabetes my father developed later in life, I thought of that woman’s shaking, pale face.
And when I looked at his limbs – a double amputee, and recognized he was in renal failure, I thought of how he fought for a life, when she could not fight for her own.
And I thought of how in his twilight years, he was experiencing the same discomfort and dis-ease he had so seamlessly kept at bay for everyone else.
But even so, I knew we were lucky, my family. We could afford my father’s insulin. We could afford to do what it took to take care of him.