Seeds of Hope

Dr. Friedberg.

The other night (Wednesday, January 30th, 2013) WHAM Channel-13, the local ABC-TV affiliate in the Rochester market, held a telethon to support Wilmot Cancer Center (“will-MOTT;” as in Mott’s applesauce).
Wilmot is the cancer-center that treated my wife Linda, who did not survive.
The camera surveyed a sleepy phone-bank of inactive people. One was yawning.
The WHAM reporter brought in the CEO of Wilmot to interview.
“Wait a minute!” I shouted. “That looks like Jonathan, Jonathan Friedberg, the Doctor we dealt with so many times.”
He tried awful hard to save my wife, and then had to face the fact he was gonna lose one.
He was made CEO of Wilmot during our time there.
He never seemed the type. Not elitist enough. A nationally-recognized expert in lymphoma cancers, which my wife had, but more a researcher than a CEO.
The reporter interviewed Friedberg, and Friedberg stumbled a little.
He’s not a self-assured blowhard, full of cogent and snappy sound-bites.
All the many times we saw Friedberg, I didn’t feel like I was dealing with the Wilmot CEO.
So I wonder how he feels about being CEO? Like it might be getting in the way of what he’d rather do: find a cure for lymphoma.
The TV reporter shut him off. I could hear Friedberg off-to-the-side thanking the station for the telethon.
Seeing old Friedberg started me crying. Me, him, and my wife tried mightily to save my wife.
But we failed.
Cancer ultimately won.
The telethon was called “Seeds of Hope.”
“Medicine of the highest order,” the University of Rochester Medical-Center trumpets.
“For stories of hope, visit ‘uofrmedicalcenter.org’.” (I can’t get that to work.)
“Well,” I’d think; “my wife didn’t make it.”