Friday, April 06, 2012

His Human Experience Completed

I went a funeral this week. I attended as a family member, sort of, because the man being honored married my widowed mother-in-law thirteen years ago. I've known Doc Perkes my entire life; he having moved into our small town to be a doctor when I was just three years old. My title was taken from a quote that was a favorite of his, and was a theme of the service. "Always remember that we are spiritual beings having a human experience." He and I had a couple of memorable human experiences,  and I'd like to offer my tribute to him for those.

The first time I remember being his patient was when, at 14, I needed a doctor's okay in order to be on my church's volleyball team. This was a slightly traumatic event because, at 14, I was beginning the role of a young woman and had developed the associated parts. But until this appointment, I had managed to avoid any notice of them by others (naively discounting that boys had probably noticed) and was successfully masquerading as a teen-aged farm girl/boy. Well, I mean, I wore a bra, I dealt with the Monthly Visitor, but I never discussed any of it with anyone. Now, here I was in a medical office, dressed only in a little gown, being inspected by a doctor. When the appointment was completed, I received an endorsement of health to participate in volleyball, and I received an evaluation of my over-all physical excellence that I could really understand.

Doc Perkes owned a purebred Hereford ranch. He raised bulls for sale. He knew cattle and breeding and genetics. I, too, understood animal husbandry, and had actually participated in helping cows with the birthing of one or two calves by then. I'd spent many fascinating hours pouring over the breed books from the artificial insemination company used by my dad. You could pick just the right bull to use for each cow to improve our dairy herd. I got it.

So when I heard this evaluation of my overall physical self from Doc Perkes,  I got it: "You Welch girls are built like a strong heifer. You have great bones. When it comes time to have a baby, you'll drop it like a purebred."  A compliment indeed---someone else may have been offended. Not me. I recognized the praise. Turns out, he was dead on, in my case. I did "drop them like a purebred."

My next major encounter with the Doc occurred after I'd been to see him a couple of times with sick children while on vacation visiting our parents in Wyoming. One summer, I had two siblings being married, and so I just went to stay for the summer with my parents. We had three little ones at the time. My dad suggested that, if I'd like to earn some money while staying for those weeks with them, I could hire my youngest sister to babysit, and go to work at the new gun manufacturing plant there in our valley. They made small derringers that fired .22 caliber bullets; but the gun was almost a novelty in that could fit into a mount on a cowboy style belt buckle. Long story short: several weeks later, I ended up accidentally shooting myself in the hand while working in the test-fire shed. It's complicated....

Anyway, I was hustled up to the hospital, in great agony and whisked into the emergency room. The only doctor in our hometown at that point was Doc Perkes. I learned at the funeral that this period, lasting almost eight years, was a severe test for him and his family because of the overwhelming workload. I remember being very calm as I was being prepped for the doctor's arrival, asking if there was any damaged to my wedding ring. This freaked out the nurse who hadn't yet noticed I was wearing a ring---the big hole in my palm had distracted her. Fortunately they were able to remove my ring without having to cut it off--the extreme swelling I experienced came later.

So Doc Perkes arrived, checked the X-ray, trimmed, cleaned, stitched and repaired the damage that the blast had caused to my palm and put me in a large bandage and a cast. I have photos of the bandaged hand, as I stood serenely in my sister's wedding party a few days later, holding a basket of flowers suspended from it.

(And, may I add: I'd given birth three times previous to the gunshot wound, and would gladly give birth any number of times rather than experience another gunshot wound.) (Serious pain--serious.) (And if you've labored to give birth, you know that that experience is not exactly pain free.)

Annnnywaaay....we returned to our home in San Diego the week after my visit to the small town ER, and I went up to the orthopedic clinic there at the Naval Regional Medical Center for an evaluation by the specialists there. Mind you, these are doctors who'd learned on sailors and soldiers who'd fought in Viet Nam combat. So, they knew a bit about trauma injuries. They were very impressed at my repaired hand.

As the doctor examined me, he asked again who'd done the initial treatment. I explained again. There was a disconnect for the orthopedic surgeon. "A general practice doctor? Seriously? Where did you  say this was?"  I went on to point out that Doc Perkes had a lot of experience with traumatic injuries and childbirth. He was really good at repairing wounds. The ortho doctor called in his colleagues and his students and had them check me out and seriously complimented Doc Perkes for his excellent work. It was quite fun to recount this to Doc many years later when he became my almost-relative.

His funeral was a celebration of a life well-lived. One of his goals, as recorded when he was fifteen, was to be a small town country doctor. He achieved that by serving for fifty-five years in that capacity. He was a fine companion for my beloved mother-in-law, and they enjoyed traveling the world, serving their fellow man and presiding over his large, and marvelously talented, family together for the decade-plus they had together. I appreciate the few, but significant, times he impacted my life before I became a sort-of relative, and I just wanted to share my respects.


Their wedding day, September 18, 1999

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