By Susan Lake, OD

I’ve written before that one of the reasons I’ve become so passionate about educating my patients on the benefits of supplementation is that I feel a responsibility to more than just their immediate vision needs.  One of the biggest changes that occur over the course of any doctor’s career is the growing connection to her/his patients.  Without even knowing it, you become a part of their lives. They share pictures, they tell you stories, they consider you a friend.

I recently lost one of my friends.  She was just shy of her 85^th birthday.  I first met her husband over a decade and a half earlier as a patient.  He and I hit it off immediately and he thought I should meet his “better half.”  On her first visit I was surprised to see a physically small woman in the exam chair when I entered the room.  Her husband was a very tall man and I had falsely assumed she would be taller.  I don’t use the word “bigger” because I quickly learned that there were few people I would meet in that exam room that were bigger personalities than this woman.  She was smart, articulate and passionate about women, their careers and balancing that with their families.   She quickly made me realize that she was one of the females that had paved the way for my daughters and I to be able to forge an easier path in this world and finding our place in it.  I cherished her annual exams and learned something new each and every time.

In recent years I would hold by breath whenever I would receive an email with the subject line “Sympathy” from the church we both attended.  Her husband, also my friend, had been in poor health in recent years and I was concerned his name would be found after I opened the email.  I was unprepared the day I opened it and saw her name instead.

I went to her funeral and sat waiting for the service to begin.  I watched the slide show her family had lovingly prepared that would allow us to see a montage of her life while we said goodbye.  As I watched the photos I particularly noticed the ones from the past 15 years when I had been able to know her and treat her.  I watched her glasses change style, shape and power.  I remembered prescribing every one of them.  I remembered the conversations I had with her regarding her MPOD scores and how I wanted her to start taking a supplement to ward off any further macular degeneration.  I knew I had cared for her the best I knew how and I felt so privileged to have been a part of her life in this manner.  We forget that we help our patients see this world until their last breath.  How lucky are we?  We must remember that we are responsible for giving them every last bit of information we have to make sure that even their final looks are as clear as possible.

Dr. Susan Lake is a native of Nebraska and a graduate of the University of Nebraska. She completed her Doctorate of Optometry from Southern College in Memphis. She is Board Certified in Vision Development and Vision Therapy and has a strong pediatric emphasis to her practice. She speaks frequently to parent and professional groups, sharing with them the importance of early recognition of vision problems. In her spare time she reads and contributes to her own blog discussing being a working Optometrist and Mom at Babyfocals.com. She and her husband share three Optometry practices and three daughters and they can all usually be found on a lake, in a boat and waterskiing.