 |
 |
||
|
||
 |
|
 |
|
|
|
"Dr. Badway and his staff were
like It was in the midst of undergoing in-vitro-fertilization attempts that Raitano learned she had endometrial cancer. Had she and her husband not been trying to conceive a child, the cancer most likely would not have been found until a much later stage. Ask Raitano who accompanied her on that nightmarish journey, and she will answer her husband, family, friends and Dr. David Badway.
Mercy's Dr. David Badway gets "Dr. Badway and his whole office staff knew how hard Mark and I were trying to have a baby. They were all really rooting for us - they were like family," recalls Raitano, who lives with her husband in Southpointe near Canonsburg. After having no luck conceiving on their own, the Raitanos wanted to speed up the process. Badway referred the couple to Dr. Anthony Wakim, a reproductive endocrinologist at Magee-Womens Hospital of University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. When Raitano was undergoing in-vitro procedures and medical monitoring, the doctors found the cancerous polyp on Raitano's endometrium, the uterus lining. "I said, 'That just can't be,'" Raitano recalls of her January meeting with Badway. "I think it really ripped his heart out to have to tell me." Just one month later, Raitano underwent a hysterectomy. While it removed the cancer, it also ended any chances that she would conceive and bear children. It is a choice, she says, that she would have rather not had to make - but she remains thankful that her cancer was caught early. The suddenness of the diagnosis - and the realization that her dream of conceiving a child would never occur - were bitter pills to swallow. But there came a point at which Raitano, encouraged and supported by her gentle husband, knew she had to move forward. "I said, 'Now let's get our battle face on and do what we need to do.'" It is the strength and fortitude of women like Raitano that keep Badway going day to day, he says. "I believe women are incredibly strong, and I have seen this throughout my career," he says, adding that he gets as much from the ob/gyn practice as he hopes his patients do. As for his compassionate bedside manner, Badway says it stems from never forgetting "where I came from. I do not come from a family of physicians; in fact, I came from a family who feared medical care. I like to try to put myself in my patients' shoes. While I can't have a baby, I can develop a sense of professional empathy." As for Raitano, she and her husband are taking time to regroup and figure out what comes next. She knows Badway will be there for her, whatever the future brings. |
|
|
In-Vitro Saved Her Life
Badway, chair of Mercy Hospital of Pittsburgh's department of obstetrics and gynecology, witnesses daily the joys and disappointments that accompany pregnancy. Badway, 49, shares a practice with eight other physicians at Greater Pittsburgh Obstetrics and Gynecology, one of the city's largest ob/gyn groups. But Raitano will be the first to tell you that Badway's operation is a far cry from the factory approach of move-'em-in-move-'em-out that some large practices have.
|
|
WHAT'S GOING ON |
|
