First it was Ronda, then Billy Joe -- and now Dr. Daksha. My Dr. Daksha, once my employer, once my doctor, and always my friend, is gone. She passed away on April 18, 2009 of stomach cancer.
Google is so pervasive in our lives, it's always "just google it", so I was googling dried cranberries and nuts in an effort to find the website where I had ordered some mix for Chris before. If I'd only read my own post Gifts from 2 years ago, then I wouldn't have been googling for the elusive company that sold the cherry berry nut mix, I could have clicked and gone right to it, and my heart wouldn't be heavy. But anyway, back to googling, in my search, I saw the word "chutkar". That stirred a memory, of the name "Chudgar" - Dr Daksha Chudgar... so I decided to google her. I was hoping to find that she'd moved back to Augusta after completing her fellowship in Kentucky, I'd love to see her again, have her be my doctor again, but what I saw was her obituary. There it was, staring me in the face. I couldn't take it in, I couldn't believe it. I saw the words, but my mind was scrambling to make it not be MY Dr Daksha.
But, it was my Dr. Daksha, I called my mom - we cried on the phone. She knows how much Dr Daksha means to me. She gave me my first job after I graduated from nursing school, she diagnosed me with endometriosis and saw me through years of pain and tears, she understood me, she knew my body almost better than I knew it myself. She gave me her home phone number and told me to call her at 5 am to report on my condition - one answer would have had me going to the operating room, the other - back to sleep. Thankfully, that time I avoided the operating room. But my doctor gave me her home phone number and told me to call her at 5 am.
She refused to even talk about a hysterectomy until after I turned 30 she said. She would not consider even discussing it until then, so when, at age 29, she sat me down and cried with me when she told me it was time for me to have the surgery, I knew we'd done everything we possibly could to fight the disease. My hope of ever bearing a child was gone, I knew that it was time because Dr Daksha told me so. I had no health insurance at that time, she did the surgery without charging me, she got the hospital to cut 20% off my bill. She did things like that for me, and I'm sure for others.
I visited her home, she invited me and my mom to a celebration once, I watched her kids grow up in person and in photos, she was woven so tightly into the fabric of my life for a period of about 10 years. I cried when she moved to Kentucky. I felt so lost the first time I had to find a GYN, and I went to several before finding one I felt comfortable with. How could I fill a new doctor in on my complicated GYN history? It couldn't be done. But, she'd gotten me through the worst years, and now, I just see my GYN once a year.
Clicking through the pages that google found, had me seeing page after page, article after article about my Dr Daksha. Proof in print of what a wonderful person, wonderful physician she is.
I remember her mis-matched clothes, her soft voice, her laugh. I remember her fibs when she'd tell me something wasn't going to hurt, or when "just one more" meant she was going to go for at least 2 or 3 more.
I emailed the obituary to my friend Liz, the one other person next to my Mom, who could understand the impact this news has had on my heart. She did what I did, she googled, and she soaked up every bit of information she could find. She found out that it was stomach cancer, she found the photo of her. We remembered Dr Daksha this morning on the phone, we laughed and we cried.
The family asked that contributions be made to The Lydia Project. Go, read, check it out, do something. I did, I contributed money, and I plan on doing more.
If her family googles her name and finds my blog, I hope they can smile and know that I'm just one of the many who was touched by this amazing woman. Thank you Dr Daksha, for everything.
For a photo - go here.
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