The Human Touch 2013 - University of Colorado Denver

TBI Memoir [Continued]
We walking wounded, who mark
Our days with penitent steps. Living
With a miserable ache, but choosing
To live, hope and simply be as time
Polishes the rough edges away.
I remember the before time, before
A choice shaped our lives forever.
But I have you, and you have me.
We will move through the tides of
This misconception and fi nd a way to be. •
Lament of a Retired Eye Surgeon
And His Homeless Patient
Robert L Stofac, MD
Shortly after I retired from private practice I joined some of my retired colleagues
who were attending part time at the homeless clinic in Denver. One morning I had
a middle-aged man in the chair who during the exam woefully lamented, “I can’t
believe I’m here doc. Things just seemed to happen.” It caught me off guard and
I can’t remember exactly what I said to him in response, but I’m sure it was about
as inadequate as it was reassuring. That evening at supper I told my wife about the
encounter and as the table talk of our day’s events often does, it blended into the
next and was forgotten. Later that evening while waiting for the TV weather report
before joining my wife for bed a commercial came onto the screen featuring a
surgeon at the scrub sink in an otherwise abandon hall outside the operating room.
The scene took me back to so many late night trauma cases, the kind I hated getting
up for. But as the young surgeon fi nished his scrub I looked at him and thought,
“You lucky bastard.” And then the words of that morning’s patient came back to me,
“I can’t believe I’m here doc.”
Lament of a Retired Eye Surgeon
And His Homeless Patient
He looks forward to being home again
at the homeless clinic on Stout Street,
He greets his fi rst patient with,
It’s nice to see you,
please come in and have a seat.
There is some small talk here,
as important as it was there.
It’s making the connection,
saying that he cares.
The day usually starts out slowly
and builds to a late morning crunch.
Today when he has fi nished seeing patients,
He shall walk up town for lunch.
No eating on the fl y today.
He will sit and maybe read.
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