Lucky Chuck

The patient in trauma room six looked up at me, smiled and said, "What's the difference between God and a brain surgeon?"

- W. LEE WARREN, M.D

Rushing through the hospital, I grabbed my next patient’s chart.

Male. Early sixties. Possible head injury. He’d flipped his ATV while working cattle on his ranch.

I looked at the man’s brain scan images. My heart sank.

I’m a neurosurgeon. Three weeks earlier, I’d started a new job at the Wyoming Medical Center, in the city of Casper. I was still getting my bearings. But I had no doubt what that white-and-gray mass in the man’s brain images meant. It had nothing to do with his accident.

This man had a lethal form of cancer called glioblastoma. He would likely be dead before the end of the year.

I glanced at the man’s name.

Charles Hobson. I could already hear myself: “Mr. Hobson, I’m afraid I have some difficult news.”

He was in trauma room six. I knocked and opened a sliding glass door separating his bed from the rest of the ER.

To my surprise, Mr. Hobson was already out of bed and back in his denim overalls. He sat pulling on a pair of cowboy boots.

“Hello, Mr. Hobson,” I said. “I’m Dr. Lee Warren. I’m a neurosurgeon.”

Mr. Hobson looked up and grinned. He was a large man, built like a college linebacker.

“Hey, I got a joke about that,” he said. “What’s the difference between God and a brain surgeon?”

“I have no idea,” I said, trying to muster a smile.

Mr. Hobson’s grin widened. “God don’t think he’s a brain surgeon!” He guffawed and extended a hand. “Name’s Charles. Everybody calls me Lucky Chuck.”

I considered how best to deliver my diagnosis to a man with that nickname. But Lucky Chuck was not done.

“I’m an educated man myself,” he said. “College degree in animal science. Been a rancher all my life. Believe it or not, I’ve been struck by lightning three times. Between you and me, luck had nothing to do with me sitting here today. It was all by the grace of God.”