Mary, Lisa and Angel

I liked having my surgery at the Queensway-Carleton Hospital’s Day Surgery Unit. The staff there, for the most part, seemed friendly and competent. It’s important, when you’re in such a vulnerable position, to feel you’re in good hands.

Here are just a few of the people who made an impression.

Mary

The first person you meet when you’re directed to the Day Surgery Unit is Mary. Mary’s such a character, she’s almost a caricature of herself. She’s a displaced Maritimer, but she’s thoroughly Irish, starting with her standard greeting: “Top o’ the mornin’ to ya.” She’s bustling and efficient and outrageously cheerful and good-humoured. Everything about her smiles: her eyes, her mouth, her voice, her words. You don’t get to spend enough time with Mary. She just processes your paperwork and delivers you into the hands of either an orderly or a volunteer, who escorts you to the Day Surgery ward. But during your brief time with her, she’ll call you ‘love’ and show you pictures of her cat, Pickles, or she’ll tell you not to fret because you’re in good hands and everybody here loves the patients, or she’ll say something like “Oh, I see your surgeon is Dr. Proudlove. He’s an excellent pastry chef, did ya know that? Yes he is, and a very fine surgeon too, I’m told.”

Lisa

I mentioned Lisa before. She’s the nuclear medicine technologist who took the time to call booking and make me an MRI appointment when she found out they still hadn’t scheduled one with me. It might not sound like a big deal, but when you’re going through cancer diagnostics and imaging tests, it feels like every hour counts and you’re grateful to every person who moves an obstacle out of your way.

At 8:00 on Wednesday morning, Lisa suddenly appeared at the foot of my bed, smiling warmly like an old friend and saying “Hey, remember me? I met you the day of your bone scan.” We caught up a bit while she and GC rolled me and my bed right back to that same room where I had the bone scan. Then she took the time to explain the procedure she was about to perform – she was going to inject a radioactive isotope into my breast, which would enable my surgeon to distinguish my sentinel lymph node from my other lymph nodes. This way, the surgeon could remove only a couple of nodes which would be tested for cancer on the spot, instead of removing all of them. She told me apologetically that it was going to burn and she was right. (GC commented afterwards on how impressively sharp my fingernails were.)

I saw Lisa again later in the day as I was leaving the hospital in a wheelchair, and she came down to my eye level to talk to me. Nice touch, I like that. (Extra added bonus: I peed green for two days because of the isotope.)

Angel

She’s my surgeon. There was a big full-colour picture of her last week in the flyers that were delivered with the Saturday Citizen – she’s the poster doctor for the hospital’s current campaign. It said “Dr. Angel Arnaout is changing the face of cancer care.”

I think she’s got all the qualities you could want in a surgeon. She’s energetic, focused and driven, and probably a workaholic. She exudes self-confidence, and she maximizes every moment. There’s a precision to her: she chooses her words precisely, she doesn’t waste time, she doesn’t beat around the bush. She gets right to the heart of the matter. But she’s not cold. When the situation requires it, she will sit by your bedside, look you in the eye, and tell you gently but firmly that she’s going to fix things. And then she does. She knows how to make things happen.

In addition to all that, she’s quite exotic looking and stylish, and she shows up at the hospital for surgery at 6:30 in the morning dressed to kill, flawlessly made up and brilliantly accessorized. (And there I was, feeling like I’d accomplished a lot just by showing up at this ungodly hour and lying there in a hospital gown and shower cap.)

(Hmmm. In retrospect, maybe ‘dressed to kill’ isn’t the most appropriate term to use to describe a surgeon’s appearance. But you know what I mean, right?)