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I looked at myself in that picture and saw something in me that had not been there before. The past few weeks had changed me, molded me into someone that was still me butdifferent. I even found myself walking differently.
As the sun began to set over the horizon, Buddy and I walked back to the house. The past few hours, I had been ruminating Grandma’s last words to me, the moments we shared before she passed away.
One of them struck me differently.
“You should live every single day as if it was your last,” she had told us before we had dinner. “Hold on fast to the ones you love and grab onto luck when you can.”
The question is—do I have the strength and courage to do that?
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
OLIVER
Being a doctor was tough.
You had to endure years of schooling and endless exams before you eventually got your license to practice. Even then, there were still more hours of rigorous training in specific fields and countless sleepless nights watching over patients.
When I was a resident in training, I would often wonder if I somehow picked the right profession but every single time I managed to help a patient, those thoughts were wiped clear off my mind.
This is where I belong. I’ve always known it, I said to myself.
“Your ECG tracing looks fine, Mrs. Collins,” I told one of my senior patients with a smile, holding up the strip of paper to her. “Your other labs also came in and they looked pretty good. As long as you continue with your maintenance medications and stick to a healthy lifestyle, you’ll be fine.”
“Thank you, Dr. Compton,” she said with a relieved smile. She turned to her son. “See? I told you I was fine!”
Her son just shook his head. “I just wanted to make sure, Mom.”
I laughed at them both. “You’re lucky you have such a caring son, Mrs. Collins.”
“And we’re both lucky we have you, Dr. Compton,” she said with sincere gratitude shining in her gray eyes.
I handed them the prescription for her maintenance meds and watched as they left the consultation area. I glanced briefly at the wall clock and saw that it was already a quarter before three but I still hadn’t had my lunch yet.
Most people would be thinking about tea time right about now, I thought to myself ruefully.Not me, though.
There was still a long list of patients waiting for me and I couldn’t afford to make them wait any longer.
I grabbed my stethoscope and went over to the next examination room. All of the three examination rooms looked mostly the same with an examination table and two chairs for the patient and their companion. There was also a nondescript laminate wooden desk with a prescription pad always ready in the drawer. On the table was also a 3D model of a heart that I used to explain to patients about their diseases.
Old Mr. Carmichael was already waiting for me when I came in. He was seated on the examination table with his legs dangling off the floor. When he saw me come in, his blue eyes lit up with a twinkle.
“Hello, Mr. Carmichael!” I greeted him, injecting as much enthusiasm as I could into my voice. “Are you here for your routine checkup?”
He nodded. “That I am, Dr. Compton.”
“Hmm…And did you have any problems since the last time we saw each other?”
“None so far, Dr. Compton. My wife’s been making sure I stayed on the straight and narrow.”
His wife, who was seated on a chair next to the examination table, laughed. “Not that it hasn’t been hard work!”
I grinned at her. “I’m sure you’ve had your hands full with him, Mrs. Carmichael!”
As I proceeded with the physical examination, I chatted with Mr. Carmichael, noting if he was going out of breath. I was happy to note that he seemed to be keeping up with the conversations just fine. I pulled out my stethoscope and listened to his heartbeat, noting the irregularities in them.
Mr. Carmichael had been a patient of mine for years. He first came in with angina—chest pains, in layman’s terms—and was worried because he had a strong family history of heart diseases. One year before he came to me, his sister had died of a heart attack.
Over the years, we had formed a bond and sometimes, Mrs. Carmichael would even bring me some of her awesome sandwiches.
