Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 15, 1995 TAG: 9506170010
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BETH MACY
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Then, in the time it took you to read that first sentence, she nearly lost it all. Blind-sided by a car traveling 75 in a 25-mph zone, Thompson was thrown from the driver's side of her car into the passenger's side window - her left foot still planted on the clutch.
And so, for the past two years, she has spent many hours in the company of physicians.
Surgeons to replace her pelvis, hip and part of her leg. Dentists and periodontists to re-mold her teeth and jaw. Psychiatrists, physiatrists and pain technicians to help her recover from the head injury, pain and depression that engulfed her when she literally lost her mind, as she puts it.
You wouldn't want to see her medical bills. You wouldn't want to face the uncertainty she lives with - not knowing whether she'll work again, or care for her husband without live-in help, or even remember how to drive from her Smith Mountain Lake home to the nearest store.
``My husband is a victim of MS,'' she says. ``And some of the best presents he's ever gotten were from people who gave things to our children - memories of how he was when he was well, kindnesses he had shown, stories about their dad that made him a unique individual.''
For Father's Day, Thompson wants to introduce you to her medical team, so not only the public - but their own children - will know how terrific these professionals are.
``There's been so much talk about medical people being out for money,'' the 52-year-old woman says. ``But these men, they attack the Hippocratic oath with a vengeance.
``It's like their feelings are hurt if you don't get better.''
nOrthopedic surgeon Dr. Alfred Durham manages her care. ``He raises orchids, which I find unusual for someone who repairs bones. It makes you realize how he appreciates delicacy; it gives you confidence about him as a doctor.''
nPsychologist Alan Katz taught her how to cope with her memory loss and the other results of her head injury.
A former educator, Thompson lost all her foreign-language vocabulary, couldn't remember the words to Christmas carols and got lost while running the simplest errands. ``I can't read maps now; there's too much information,'' she says.
Dr. Katz took tiny sections of maps, enlarged them and instructed Thompson to carry them with her. Because she was paralyzed by panic attacks while driving, he also made relaxation tapes for her to play in the car and gave her affirmative scenarios to recite when crossing intersections.
Psychiatrist Daniel Harrington ``put me back together in a way I didn't realize,'' she recalls. ``I felt invincible before; I'd been supporting my family for 15 years.''
Harrington let her make up her own mind to go back to work as a traveling admissions worker for ECPI two months after the accident. He stood behind her withdrawal from work six months later when she returned from a long trip and was in so much pain that she couldn't get out of her car.
It was Harrington she called when her brother was murdered in a robbery in Sacramento three weeks ago. ``He just gave me his regular pep talk, told me to handle it one item at a time, that the important thing for me to learn was to delegate authority to my brothers and sisters.''
Dr. Edward Workman, a pain-management specialist, ``is a brilliant young man who develops drugs in addition to [prescribing] them. He's very technical, and you have to work on a computer and answer questions before he sees you so he knows your state of mind.''
Thompson is grateful to Workman for controlling her medication so she's comfortable, but not zombie-like.
Dentist Robert Kaiser and his nurse-wife Sylvia went the extra mile when Thompson was being transported to a North Carolina hospital for a leg operation. ``We stopped at Dr. Kaiser's office, and he and his wife climbed in the ambulance, took my [dentures] impressions, and had my teeth ready when I got out of the hospital.''
Periodontist William Swann genuinely cared about her appearance. ``I am not an attractive person to begin with; I'm an old overweight woman,'' says Thompson, who was Miss New York 1964. ``But Dr. Swann understood how important it was'' to look her best.
And physical therapist Glenn Stafford meets her regularly at a swimming pool to go through her regimen of exercises. ``This is a man who hates the water, but he gets in there and does the exercises with me,'' she says.
Thompson isn't particularly religious, but she says she's sure these people were hand-picked from above to treat her.
In an age where physician-bashing runs rampant, here are seven men who care enough to piece a woman's life back together, body and mind.
``Their children should know and the public should know,'' she says. ``These men are heroes.''
Beth Macy is a feature writer and Thursday columnist. Her work number is 981-3435.
by CNB