Last week I stumbled onto something, or should I say someONE awesome. I was aimlessly browsing my twitter feed, something I do too often while procrastinating doing actual work, when I happened to see a YouTube link. I honestly don’t even remember who had posted it, I think it was one of the many international cancer charities that I follow. The video was a news clip from KTLA5 in Los Angeles, about a radiation oncologist (simply put, a cancer doctor), who would go above and beyond for her patients. She had purchased tickets to an Andre Rieu concert for an elderly terminal patient. In the video, the Doctor talks about when she told the woman and her husband about the tickets, “They said this is incredible, why are you doing this for me? You know, why do you care so much?” Then the doctor, fighting back tears replies with “Why not?”
I found myself googling this Doctor (her name is Krupali Tejura) and watched another YouTube video, this time of a TEDx talk she gave. From this video I learned about how she helped send a patient of a colleague of hers, whom she had never met, to a Pittsburgh Steelers game. She talks about when she phoned the couple to tell them about the flight, hotel, and tickets she had rounded up for them through donations. “You don’t know me, but there are a lot of people in the world, including me, who care about you and we’ve put together a package for you and your wife to go see the Steelers play. They were overwhelmed. [The patient] started crying on the phone, who are you?”
I’m not going to lie, I was in tears. Granted though, I was in tears already from the first video. I then went to the Doctors blog (http://krupalitejura.com), and I was moved beyond words. I read stories of her inspirational patient care, in that she truly CARES about her patients as people! I read about how she deals with working with cancer every day, how she deals with death, and how she deals with hope. People ask me about my career choice and those three things all the times. I sat for a few hours, mesmerized, reading about this woman, who not only worked in the same field I was dedicating my life to, but had the same outlook on life, death, and people as I did. She was the American, slightly older, smarter version of me! At the end of her bio it reads:
“I love meeting people who dream big….people who love to laugh….meeting new people…silly people…people who make me think…. people who love adventure…people who like to do rather than sit and watch the world go by…people who dare to do the unthinkable…people who don’t follow the norm…people who make me smile…people who believe the impossible is possible….
I am a random soul…who knocks on doors.. and believes that anything can be made into reality.
Who I want to MEET? Witty overachievers, ambitious save-the-world types who still maintain a sense of humor, people who hope to accomplish great things and have big dreams, a sense of idealism, unceasing curiosity and passion for something…”
So for those who know me, you can understand why I think she is awesome.
With coincidental timing no doubt, the next day I get a text from my friend Chris saying, “Hey I won 2 tickets to the BC Lions game next week, what should I do with them?” (We already have season tickets with all our friends, so really had no need for extra tickets somewhere else in the stadium!) I sat at my desk looking at my phone and had a thought, let’s donate them to someone. I talked to a non-profit society for kids with disabilities. They told me about a boy who had disabilities from acquired brain injuries, who was also dealing with cancer in his family and didn’t have the luxury of buying tickets to a football game. I gathered up some merchandise I could give with the tickets and put together a backpack with two BC Lions hats I had never worn (one was autographed by some players), football noisemakers, souvenirs, and the tickets. The mother was so grateful when she was given everything, and I knew she would appreciate it more than anyone we could have sold the tickets to.
I know it sounds cliché, but it honestly feels really cool to know that you are doing something good. You don’t need money to help people, you just need motivation.
Call me Moni-Q. 