Rest in Peace whoever you may be…

Yesterday, I went to see my Doctor for a follow-up
on a PSA test I had a week ago that is part of an ongoing
routine to make sure my body is clean of the cancer that invaded it
three years ago.

Prostate cancer at the time was diagnosed  by the tests
that I had been having for several years and my doctor said
it’s time for your treatment to begin, you have your choice
which will it be.

We went down the list and discussed every one
none of them seemed like fun so Radiation was the one of choice
as it required very little from me other than lie on the table
and watch this giant expensive machine shoot radiation where it needed to be
wondering if it would do the trick or would further treatments be
a necessity.

That was three years ago and follow-up tests have since shown
no sign of cancer of any kind.
The Doctor said  “You are looking Good. I’ll see you back here not in six months time
but this time a year we can go, because your test do not show any signs of the disease
it has not re-occurred and if it does slow it will be”.

I thanked him for everything he had done, gathered up my things
and walked out of the door, feeling happy with life to hear the good news
and walked to my car in a great mood.

A woman ran by me in obvious distress and I watched her as she ran in the door
of the closest place which happened to be, an office where Doctors and Nurses
would be and in fact were already present doing
the job they normally do helping people get well from their pain.

How were they to know that this day a little different would be
as they were called to act in this emergency.

Out rushed Doctors and Nurses too, one with a crash cart to start a heart
that had stopped beating as in the Parking Lot lay
a man who had just gotten out of his van and stricken he lay on the ground
and was quickly surrounded by the medical staff who were doing their best
to start his heart beating in his chest.

I did not stay to watch the scene as onlookers only get in the way
I do not know if the man survived to continue his life for another day
or whether his life ended this way and he is with his maker.

This is the second time I have witnessed this scene for six months ago
at the last follow-up, as I was leaving the office a crowd I did see
gathered around a man who had also collapsed  and on the ground did lay
stricken by a heart that gave out that day.

Again, I did not stay and maybe it’s because in my own way
what I was watching appeared to me as a sign of my own mortality
and just how easy it is that we on this earth are here for such a limited time
and each breath we take is borrowed from life, time that is pre-measured
with a finite end that we can do nothing to change.

I thought of these men as I drove away
and the fact that two such occurrences I had seen
I thought of their families they have left behind
and the shock to them as they did find
out that their Husband or Father or Son would not return
to them this day as the Lord had taken them  away.

Dedicated to all Doctors, Physicians and Medical Staff everywhere.