Thank you to the Medical Community

When I was 11 years old my grandfather had both his legs amputated.   When I was 27 years old my grandmother had one leg amputated.  When I was 30 years old my father had both his legs amputated.  On May 4, 2009 my Mother’s leg was amputated and on August 11 she had a heart attack and double by-pass.  On June 18, 2009 my twin brother had a heart attack. He had by-pass surgery on July 11 and his second leg amputated two days later.  On September 24, 2009 my older brother had his leg amputated.  They were or are all diabetic. In my family of origin, I am the sole surviving member that is neither diabetic, has heart disease, nor any amputations.  I am healthy.

It occurs to me that my role in this journey is not only to stand as a witness to what Diabetes creates even for the most disciplined of patients, but I am also here to tell the story about the incredible blessings received from the medical community.   I must tell you how lucky our family is to have hundreds of you working on our behalf. 

The mere fact that a decision was made to work in the medical field in what ever capacity chosen contributed to giving this family a chance it would not have gotten had you not made that decision. The commitment to help us overcome life threatening set backs that dramatically changed the course of 3 generations gave us, and continues to give us, an ability to thrive. The miracle is in helping us to successfully meet the changing dimensions that disease sometimes creates. 

What others take for granted, I do not.  Whether it is the orderlies that cleaned the rooms in any one of 20 hospitals my family stayed at; the chefs that fed them for a minimum of 80 weeks of hospitalizations; the customer service people from multiple insurance carriers that guided us;  the billers that processed the mountain of claims they created;  the practice managers that worked with me on behalf of each family member;  the recommendations given by industry insiders or the myriad of incredible doctors, nurses, medical assistants, and many more who provided care or supported it - your roles were not insignificant.  The admissions clerks, the coder, the social worker, the telephone, IT,  and television guy may not fully understand why their efforts make a difference, but I do.  Had any one of you decided not to work in medicine, and more importantly not given it your very best, my family would have perished and I would have found myself today without one.

There is no question in the minds of anyone that works in medicine on a daily basis that the system is broken.  Yet even in a broken system we commit every day to support the challenges that many families like mine face.  Most of the time, it works.  Sometimes it doesn’t.  As a contributing member of this incredible community, I am here to testify on behalf of my family to say to you that the next time you think what you do doesn’t make a difference and doesn’t matter remember my family story, because it does.  Every single piece of the process matters.  Every spoken word matters.  Every human touch matters.  We matter and what we give matters not just for a single minute but for generations.

We are a community of individuals that collectively contribute to what matters most and that is to touch the lives of the people we come in contact with.  But understand that the difference we make is not just for a limited number of people we meet during the course of our career. What we do actually transcends to changing the course of lives in future generations too.  Do not for one moment underestimate that.    

Washington will tinker, stumble, and maybe even blunder with the medical system in an attempt to change it for the better, but what they can’t touch is our dedication, determination, and most of all the things we do that change the course of generations one moment at a time and one patient at a time. 

So today I stand up for my family to honor all of you for giving us an immense amount of blessings.   We are indebted to you and we thank you on behalf of the generations past, the generations here, and the ones yet to come.  With God’s grace I will be the first to go forward ending this insidious disease in our family, leading our children, and grandchildren down the same path.  My family understands that I will not be able to accomplish the goal without you, but they are immensely grateful that you give us a fighting chance.

Ester Horowitz