Croce.

Four months ago, my Memphis expanded greatly.  Suddenly, The Memphis Regional Medical Center and many staff persons there became the center of everything for us ...they were my life lines and they were holding the life of my husband in their hands. 

Sometime in the late evening of Friday, October 8, my world collided with that of Doctor Martin Croce.   In hindsight, I can identify this as one of the first of many miracles in our ordeal.  Dr. Croce is the Medical Director of the Elvis Presley Memorial Trauma Center at The Med.  This will mean more to my story later...

I was in a haze of shock and exhaustion when I first was introduced to him late that evening,  Some of the details are fuzzy but ... what I do remember is that I was interested in how he spelled his name... Huh?!  Why did I need to know that?   I have no idea, but I liked him pretty much instantly.  I think primarily because he did not make me feel stupid for asking about the spelling of "Croce" when my husband was in a serious medical crisis.   He knew I didn't really understand what was happening... they really didn't know it all yet, either.  Something else I didn't know was "who" he was and ... I had no idea yet how much we would grow to love him.  All of that began the next morning. 

Saturday, October 9, Dr. Croce had to deliver the news to me that Thomas was, as he put it, "devastatingly ill".  I think I was like a rubber statue and the words were just bouncing off me.  Dr. Croce was so patient, so deliberate and as calm as he could be in the situation.  He didn't give false hope but he is just one of the ones with that amazing gift of encouragement.  Somehow, even hearing what I was hearing, I felt a peace.  Now, I truly attribute that peace to The Great Physician, but I know... beyond a SHADOW of a doubt that The Great Physician had put this great physician right there for this time for US.  I know it as sure as I now know how to spell his name.  :)

I've read that "you don't choose The Med, you wake up in The Med"... that's mostly true although we were sort of offered a choice, one I am so very grateful we took.  However, if you do end up, wake up, or even choose The Med in a trauma situation... you hope Dr. Croce is on call.  They are all good there, we had many, many of the staff doctors and nurses guarding and watching over Thomas.  Its just that, basically, Dr Croce is the B.M.I.C in Trauma.  (Big Man In Charge)  The residents, who do a LOT of the work, snap to attention when he is around and even more so if he is the attending on a patient.  Dr Croce, or just "Croce" as I somewhere along the line began to call him (?!?), being the Medical Director of one of the busiest trauma centers in the country is in pretty high demand as a consultant and speaker.  After October 8, I think he was out of town every weekend during our 6 week stay.  There you go... one of our first miracles. 

Croce has the ability to lift a little of the weight off your shoulders.  He has got to be one of the busiest people in that whole hospital, yet... you will get his UNdivided attention if you need to speak to him.  You can ask him the same thing 10 times and he's not going to get irritated with you.  He cares.  Simple as that.  He absolutely cares and it just radiates from him.  His life has not been untouched by heartbreak and I sometimes wondered how he does what he does every day.  But, I know too, that he has used his personal experiences to make himself a deeper, richer, even more empathetic and caring doctor.  However, even though I didn't know him then, I have a feeling he was always this way.  Every resident respects (and probably fears) him, every patient family adores him.  And my family and I... we are at the front of that line.  He may or may not know it but I think he is one of those angels I talked about a few months ago.  Dr. Martin Croce is so smack in the middle of God's will for his life that he can't help but but be the extension of the HIS hand.... Croce makes it possible for God to physically reach out and touch you.

We love him.  We thank God for him,we ask His blessings on  him, to guide and protect him every day so that he can mean to so many others what he did to us.  God bless his own family, too.

Croce.  The first of many miracles in our ordeal... the first of my tributes.  Thank you.  HIOTT



Croce and Thomas. Christmas Eve 2010.