How Starbucks Saved My Life. Michael Gill

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СКАЧАТЬ had called my business Michael Gates Gill & Friends because I was in love with the sonorous sounds of my full name. But here I felt that “Mike” was the better way to go. The only way to go.

      “Mike,” Crystal said, once again shuffling the papers at the table before her, still not looking at me, “all Partners at Starbucks go by their first names, and all get excellent benefits.”

      She handed me a large brochure.

      “Look through this and you will see all the health benefits.”

      I grabbed the brochure eagerly. I hadn’t realized the position offered health insurance. Rates had gotten too high for me to afford my health insurance, and I had let it go, a mistake that I had recently found out might have serious repercussions for me. Any remaining ambivalence I had about the job went out the window.

      Just a week before I had had my annual physical with my doctor. Usually, he gave me a clean bill of health. But this time he shook his head slightly and said, “It is probably nothing, but I want you to have an MRI.”

      “Why?”

      “I just want to make sure. You said you had a buzzing in your ear?”

      “A slight buzzing,” I hastily replied. I never gave Dr. Cohen any reason to suspect my ill health. I never even told him if I was feeling ill. He was a great practitioner of tough love—which meant that he was relentless in finding anything wrong with me.

      “Slight buzzing. Buzzing!” he said in his usual, exasperated way. He was impatient with my artful dodging. “Get an MRI, and then go see Dr. Lalwani.”

      “Dr. Lalwani?” That did not sound encouraging.

      “Michael, you are a snob,” Dr. Cohen told me, “and that could kill you someday. Dr. Lalwani is a top ear doctor. He got his doctorate at Stanford. That make you happy?”

      After a lifetime of treating me, Dr. Cohen knew me too well.

      I had the MRI. Dr. Cohen had told me that it would only take a “few minutes.”

      I lay there for at least half an hour. And I also did not like the fact that I heard other doctors come in and out of the room.

      “What’s going on?”

      “Nothing,” the young orderly told me. “We will send the MRI up to Dr. Lalwani. He wants to see you.”

      I was angry. Angry with Dr. Cohen for insisting on this stupid MRI. I had been healthy all my life. And I was not about to stop now. I could not afford any ill health.

      Dr. Lalwani kept me waiting for most of the afternoon. I saw people go in and out of his office. Finally, Dr. Lalwani appeared, smiling from ear to ear. Was that a hopeful sign? Lalwani gestured me into his office. It was small and cramped and piled with papers. Not reassuring. I would have preferred a large corner office, with a comfortable couch. He was obviously not doing that well in his profession.

      “Mr. Gill,” he said.

      “Michael,” I told him, trying to be kind.

      But he was insistent, smiling harder. “Mr. Gill, I have some bad news for you … but then you knew something must be wrong … am I correct?”

      I knew something must be wrong? Was he crazy? I thought everything was all right.

      “What are you saying?” I could barely contain my anxiety and my rage at his calm demeanor.

      “You have a rare condition. Fortunately, it is in an area that is a specialty of mine.”

      “What is it?” I almost shouted, but Dr. Lalwani was not to be rushed.

      “Something very, very rare.” He smiled again. “Only one in ten million Americans.”

      I waited, filled with anger, but also with an animal sense I had to let the good doctor do it his way. I was already scared enough to yield to his academic style.

      “You have what is called an acoustic neuroma. My specialty. But very rare. It is a small tumor on the base of your brain … that affects your hearing.”

      For a second I could not see or hear anything. It was as though I had been given a blow directly to my head and heart. I think I might have stopped breathing.

      Dr. Lalwani, sensing my extreme distress, hurried on.

      “This condition is not fatal,” he said. “I can operate. But I must tell you the operation is very serious.”

      I recovered sight and sound just in time to hear those ominous words. “Serious” coming from a surgeon was not something I wanted to hear.

      “What do you mean?”

      “We bore into the skull, and it is an operation on the brain. Literally, I am a brain surgeon … this is brain surgery.”

      He was so confident in himself. I hated him for being so willing to operate.

      “Your hearing may not be restored. The tumor is causing the buzzing. It will take one or two weeks before you can leave the hospital,” he said.

      “Before I can leave the hospital,” I repeated numbly.

      “And several months before you will be fully recovered. But the rate of recovery is very high. Fatalities are very rare. Only a few actually die.”

      A few … die? Was he mad?

      “When do I have to have the operation?” I stammered out. My mouth was dry.

      “I would do it right away … but you might wish to wait several months, come back, we will have another MRI, see if the tumor has grown. You might have a very slow-growing tumor.”

      Finally, a ray of hope. Like everyone, I hated the idea of hospitals. Friends had died in hospitals. Not to mention I was broke. Any postponement was a gift from God.

      I got up quickly, shook his hand, left his office, and immediately called Dr. Cohen.

      He was not reassuring.

      “Sounds like you should have the operation,” he told me.

      “Yes,” I said, faking agreement, “but I will wait a few months for another MRI.”

      I was buying time.

      Giving up health insurance for myself was bad enough, but not to be able to afford health insurance for my children was much worse. I wondered if the tumor was in some karmic way a punishment for my behavior.

      Now, sitting across from Crystal, I read the Starbucks brochure about the insurance benefits with particular interest They seemed extensive, and even covered dental and hearing—something I had never been given as a senior executive at JWT.

      I looked up at Crystal, hopeful, “Does this cover children?”

      “How many kids do СКАЧАТЬ