pdoc's gonna be away for a while... (trigger warning for accidental abandonment)

so one day a few weeks ago i was supposed to see my pdoc (with whom i have been doing therapy every other week in conjunction with t-proper... and with whom I have a rather rather fraught relationship) but the clinic called me at exactly 0701 and said that he wasn't going to be in that day. i figured he had the sniffles or something. but i started to hear rumblings (we work for the same hospital). and then on accident (from some carelessly chatting psych folk), i learned that he had a seizure out of the blue, got an MRI, and was diagnosed with a brain tumor.

i don't... i just don't know what to feel or say or think. in the session before he got sick we were talking about how he and t have been encouraging me to separate some from my parents, about how it might be possible to feel held in therapy. and i was trying to make the point to him that the trade he offered was a pretty crappy one. firstly, i've never felt held in therapy, and certainly not by him. and secondly, while my parents are not perfect and have caused me hurt (as do all parents to their children), they are the only people who would really care about me in the event of the apocalypse. that even if he could cause me to feel held, he would only be able to do such a thing for an hour a week... and at the end of the day, i am his patient and he is my doctor and that is the extent of it. and at the end of that last session i said i didn't know if therapy was helping or not and he said he felt slapped in the face.

i am feeling a lot of things now. firstly... he and i have had a lot of disagreements and sometimes he has really pissed me off. but nobody deserves a brain tumor. secondly... I was right, wasn't I? his own private apocalypse has happened and he is gone now. and thirdly, if i never see him again (which is quite possible) it is not an ideal way to end. it feels like more abandonment and grief.

i know that there are brain tumors and then there are *brain tumors*. if he's got like a meningioma or something then he'll just have to have the thing taken out and as long as it's not in a bad spot he'll be completely fine. but if it's a GBM then he will be tortured from within for a year, two at most, losing his capacity and his personality bit by bit until he dies deaf and dumb and incontinent. like i said, no one deserves that.

i told t that i knew. she was kind about it. i imagine that she is sad--the two of them have worked together for a long while, and they recently wrote a paper together. they've always spoken highly of each other (though t has been very good about acknowledging his many faults when they have caused me pain).

the clinic staff told me that pdoc won't be back until april at least, so they assigned me to another psychiatrist.

i don't really know what to think or feel or do now.

Wow. You must be feeling so many things right now. I don't know what to say to make it better, but my thoughts are with you.

That's such a shock . I so hope it IS a menagioma, and things gradually come around so there's continuity for you and not a sudden end. One of my clients is a T with a rare brain tumor; he has a brain tumor board(?) treating him. All he wants is to see his patients. He had to stop for three months, and he lost an eye and wears a patch now, but he is back to treating people. It was a major motivator for him - not to be out. I bet you PDOC will be back with fight in him, if he possibly can.

I think you were so very valid in that last conversation, and wherever you are in your decisions about family and therapy, then that's where you are and PDOC's job is to meet you there. It seems like he has a very clear picture of what he thinks is good for you, and he is nudging you kind of hard and you pushed back. That is all good stuff for therapy- as mine would say, grist for the mill.

I do believe he is holding you in mind as much as he is able, and worrying about work and his patients.

I'm sorry, that is quite a shock. Hopefully it's the less serious kind.