Departed colleague built a legacy to last

One needs a steadying and extremely calming buffer when there is a state of total flux and chaos at the workplace. PHOTO | FILE 

By CAROL MUSYOKA

Eleven and a half years ago, I lay flat on my back in rapidly growing terror as my obstetrician revealed to me every expectant mother’s worst nightmare: “The fetus is in distress, and we have to do an emergency Caesarean section surgery.”

Being my first pregnancy, it was the first time in my life that I was in hospital for any procedure and my terror level went from moderately high to stratospheric levels.

I must have started hyperventilating because the obstetrician, who had at least 30 years of experience under his senior belt, shouted at me: “Ah stop it, don’t be a baby,” in a very terse manner as the nurses started preparing to wheel me into the theatre.

I’ve never forgotten his words till this day, largely because he had been the most genteel, soft spoken and caring pre-natal provider up until that moment in the labour ward.

My brain has thankfully shut down any memories thereafter because I was catatonic with fear rather than consoled by the fact that this was a very experienced surgeon who in whose hands my life as well as my unborn child would be in.

That experience led me to understand the term “bedside manner” from a medical perspective. You may have the top notch surgeon or specialist treating you, but if they do not have the capacity to calm you down and build your confidence as you lay in your hospital bed from their professional demeanour then you might as well be treated by Dr Google.

I moved to another practitioner thereafter, and after five surgeries, I now always ask him whether he is going to use Dr O, as the anesthesiologist.

You see, your anesthesiologist is the last person you see before you go into the land of the unknown, and his bedside manner is absolutely critical in your mental state as you say goodbye — temporarily – to the world as you know it.

Dr O has the best bedside manner on this earth: he cracks jokes, has twinkling eyes above his masked face which are the last thing I see and he genuinely displays an interest in me as a patient, rather than as another body lying on the surgical table.

There’s a point to this rambling medical history soliloquy. Going for surgery has to be the most traumatic experience for any individual, short of driving in Nairobi’s traffic at peak time on a rainy day.

In my professional working life over the last 16 years, I have met only three people who are the equivalent of Dr O in the workplace.

These three (surprisingly all are female) have provided for me a steadying and extremely calming buffer when there is a state of total flux and chaos. They have the perfect bedside manner for the chaos that some workplaces present.

Last Tuesday, one of the three buffers was called by a Higher Power to execute her role in a far more glorious office.

JC, as I will refer to her here, was fiercely private and assiduously guarded the fact that she was terminally ill. When I was told that she had transitioned, I was in total shock. How?

I had worked with her on an assignment where she had been running around making sure that all the logistics were going smoothly. “She was going through chemotherapy at that time, actually,” was the response. What?