September 8
I've written in the past, at great length, about my dermatologist, Jeff. How he froze off a wart at my desk. How he treated and cared for my ADULT ACNE in the hallway of my building. How, when I went to see him month after month for the past 6 years for bald spot injections, he was kind and funny and legitimately sorry that he was hurting me, and from almost anyone else I might be inclined not to believe him because we've all had our doctors who seemed, somewhere deep within, to have ignored or forgotten the one of the primary goals of a doctor:
"As to diseases, make a habit of two thingsóto help, or at least do no harm."
Jeff and I weren't best buddies. He was my doctor, and we also happened to work within 8 feet of eachother every day. We talked. About how happy he was when his first child, a boy, was born. About how worried I was about my grandparents. About my hair and lackthereof. We talked. When his wife had their second child, a girl, he came to work laughing and proud and showing off photographs.
Jeff died last night after a catastropic brain incident. He threw an embolism in his carotid artery. He lived for one week since the time it happened. Jeff was 38 years old, he leaves behind a wife and two young children. It is all too similar to Tina for my comfort. In the email I received this morning about his death, it was said that anyone who wanted to speak at his memorial service would be welcome to do so. Of course I will not do so, because it isn't really my place, but if I was to say something, I think it might be this:
I have known Jeff for 7 years. Six of those years as my doctor, but all of them as my friend. Alopecia is a strange and elusive disease. It attacks the follicles, but much more than that, it attacks the ego. It is humiliating, confounding and ultimately incurable. I have been to many, many doctors over the years but none have touched me the way Jeff did. He was a kind man, but more than that, he was a caring, dedicated doctor always willing to listen, to gossip, to fit me in to his schedule. He helped friends of friends when it wasn't his responsibility. He always went out of his way to reassure his patients. He was a father who was obviously in love with being a father and in love with his young family. He was a doctor who was obviously in love with being a doctor because he truly wanted to help when he could, and often even when he could not. He was an up and coming research scientist, on his way to a very bright academic career and sadly, he has been taken from the world far too soon, and the world is a little bit worse for it. Jeff Schechner, above all else, did no harm and I am honored to have had the opportunity to know him.
