Roy Exum: My Friend, Dr. Blake

  • Thursday, October 22, 2020
  • Roy Exum
Roy Exum
Roy Exum

A nice congratulatory advertisement appeared in the Wednesday editions of the Times Free Press that saluted Dr. Melanie Blake as being “a finalist” in the newspaper’s contest as “Best General Practice Doctor.” It was a classy thing for CHI Memorial Medical Group to do, especially in face of the fact my Dr. Blake is no longer seeing patients nor is employed by CHI Memorial. It was also a classy thing - indeed - that in yesterday’s mail came a letter from CHI Memorial that read, in part:

“Dr.

Blake has decided to take advantage of a career opportunity which recently presented itself. We thank her for her time with us and her excellent care provided to our patients. Should you choose to continue care with Dr. Blake, we are happy to announce her new clinic and contact information: Dr. Melanie Blake, MD.; Lifestyle Medicine at Galen, 2200 East Third Street, Suite 200; Chattanooga TN 37404; Telephone: 423/497-5363.)”

I know all about this one because Melanie Blake saved my life. I have also winced, repeatedly this year, as a good number of Chattanooga’s best physicians have marched away in a dust of disgust from our largest public hospital, Erlanger, with Dr. Blake being among them. I guess that’s what makes CHI Memorial’s class even more profound and Erlanger’s lack of it more glaring.

It is said that there are 25 percent of Americans who have no primary care physician and, as one who has been down my share of life’s rough roads, I can tell you the up-front and belly-to-belly truth - you cannot do it alone. Last December I was forced to make a horrible decision due to the curse of a disease that has no cure. I became a victim of osteomyelitis a long time ago. Napoleon Bonaparte had it, if that means anything, as well as two of every 10,000 people.

It is a rare bone disease that harbors a myriad of infections - staph, strep, candida, MRSA … and down through the years I’ve only added to my collection. Luckily, it is easy to control with our new God-given drugs and lies dormant most of the time but whenever I undergo an invasive surgical procedure they all come to the party. In July of 2018, my knee was so bad I couldn’t walk and, while we all knew before I had replacement surgery that I was very much a high-risk patient, I had to gamble. It became infected before we even took the stitches out.

I had 10 additional surgeries over the next 14 months until I was told it was either cut my leg off or croak. Are you kidding me? As every new surgery failed, it was “my fault.” When the antibiotics didn’t work, it was “my fault.” I had Dr. Jay Sizemore as my infectious disease genius, Drs. Mark Freeman and Jason Rehm as my surgeons, and Christine M. Jeong and her wound care team on a constant on-call basis, and there was no way it cannot work. I am taking every antibiotic you can name and, still, we failed. It was “my fault.”

“Here’s your choice … you can either have a flail leg until it gets infected, or have your leg amputated.”

Man, I have struggled with depression all of my life and, after 10 failed surgeries - all “my fault” - I checked myself out of the hospital, hunkered down in my quiet house for two days, - just me and God, and wouldn’t answer the phone. Dr. Blake was out-of-town and, when she got back, I finally called her. “You come right now!”

I won’t go into a lot of what was said, or how much we cried together, but I will say my plan-of-action was to change the bandages, continue to take my IVs, until we finally need to call in Hospice. Cause of death - sepsis. Easy. Do you know that Dr. Blake is a redhead? That’s she is a Christian? That she has become one of dearest, personal friends?

An hour later she restored my hope to live. I’m talking about, I am swirling the drain. It was the most intensely emotional thing that I have ever experienced - I thought - and, trust me, I’ve made some colossal mistakes in my life. She got me an emergency appointment with Charlie Joels, a vascular surgeon of all things. I met with him first thing after the weekend and he walked in the room clutching a stack of papers about four inches thick. He nodded the pile and said, “This is you … we gotta’ go now.”

I told him okay, but to give me until the first of the year - sometime after Christmas - and “I will have my game face on …” In the tenderest way possible, he said after the first of the year that I wouldn’t be around. “We need to move fast.” So, two days later my leg was amputated.

In the meanwhile, I didn’t sleep well that first night because I couldn’t bear so many of my friends hearing different versions of my malady. I realized I would have to take a couple of months off from my daily musings on Chattanoogan.com and, so help me, if I miss three or four days I’ll get a pile of emails wondering “Are you sick?” So, I wrote a “so long until next time” column explaining my leg was going to be amputated the next day. “Wish me the best of luck” kind of thing and “don’t fret, I’ll be fine.”

Within 30 minutes the next morning my cell’s voicemail was full. Within the next 24 hours I received well over 2,000 emails, Facebook notes, letters stuffed in my mailbox, left on my doorstep … all confirming what my doctor, Melanie Blake, had assured me, “God has some things you still must do.”

All of this was 10 months ago. So when Melanie shared her dream of becoming a “Lifestyle Doctor,” where she will take a patient for whatever ails them, and then prescribe not only medicines but ideas on physical fitness, diet, sleep habits and a wide array of ideas how they can live the best life possible, the opportunity to do exactly that is what she embraces most about being a doctor. “The patient experience is my greatest reward.”

Take it from me. While I’ve been one-legged, we have talked all the time. Her husband Dr. John Blake - who we call Rhet - is the best pain management specialist in the Southeast. Throughout my surgeries, he has made pain problems a waltz, this while I’ll endure eight hours of pain rather than succumb to the lure of an opioid - I can’t stand what the accursed things have created in our country.

For a good many years I have referred my closest friends to Dr. Blake with the promise, “Just you wait … tell me afterwards.” Oh, my goodness … just, oh my goodness … just you wait and see.

Yes, she has told me repeatedly to ditch the cigars, the late-afternoon cocktails, and when I tell her “let’s call Hospice in,” she shakes that red hair and loves me just the same. Just like I am assured my Jesus does.

Melanie Blake … 423/497-5363. You gotta’ have a doctor. You can’t do it alone. I know from experience.

royexum@aol.com

Melanie Blake
Melanie Blake
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