Dr. Girard

As my throat is still killing me when I swallow, and I can’t start the treatment Dr. Hagege gave me which are mostly pills, I called and made an appointment with my family doctor (Dr. Girard) who I haven’t seen since all of this began.

Dr. Girard has been our family doctor for over fifteen years now and is someone I trust completely. He is always honest, extremely helpful and if he doesn’t have the answer he’ll research until he finds it. He’s one of those true old-fashioned family doctors who makes house calls in the mornings and receives patients in the afternoon until quite late in the evening. He may very well have saved my life with the speed in which he got me scanned, verified and operated on. He actually called surgeons he knew on their mobile phones while they were still on holiday to get me someone (good) as soon as possible.

It was a good meeting and we started with all of the normal niceties, Happy New Year, how’s the family? And such…

A lot of what he had to say was the same as most of the other doctors have said which is a phrase I have come to hate: “You’ll just have to be strong and get through it. Only time and rest will heal. It will take time but we do not know how long. It’s different for each person as each person is different, each cancer is different and each treatment is different.” Personally I’m sick and tired of being strong.

He gave me some new medication for the coughing, all in liquid form, and he has given me some very strong painkillers which are morphine-based. They had to be ordered special so I’ll be picking them up tonight.

He answered all of my questions with long detailed answers and called other experts for answers before responding to me. It was a very “feel good” meeting as I came out of there feeling better even though there weren’t any real answers or solutions.

One of the important things he said was that I am still sick, no matter how good I feel at certain moments, and that I should sleep when I feel tired and eat when I’m hungry and not worry about daytime, nighttime and mealtimes.