Four months later, Buckman met with his primary physician. "I was going downhill rapidly," he says. "My doctor thought I was going to die. But he couldn't abide the pain of telling me. So he called in my then-wife and told her. She came down to my room. She was bright red around the eyes. I said, 'Does he think I'm going to die?' She said, 'He thinks you might.' I had so many questions, but my wife couldn't begin to answer them. This doctor was a good friend, so I understand what he was going through."
Eventually Buckman did respond to treatment, and he hasn't needed to take medication for his condition since 1982. What did he learn from being on the receiving end of bad news? "I realized that I could stay intact psychologically even under the threat of death," he says. "Because of that, I became a braver person."
You can reach Robert Buckman by email (drbuckman@sympatico.ca).
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