A Thousand Dollar Shoebox

You might think that doctors lead glamorous lives. You know, saving lives by day, sipping cocktails by night. We picture them cruising around in fast cars, showing off their miracle hands like Formula One drivers show off their pit crew. But let me tell you, medicine isn’t all stethoscopes and rounds of applause. In fact, sometimes, it's more about being paid with a shoe box full of crumpled dollar bills and the reward of an unforgettable story.

Let’s rewind the clock 30 years, to a quiet little corner of Coahuila, Mexico, in a town so small that if you blinked while driving through, you’d probably miss it altogether. This is where my father, Dr. Antonio Corona de la Fuente, practiced medicine with the skill and precision of a man who not only loved his profession but seemed to have a particular affinity for turning catastrophic situations into… well, slightly less catastrophic ones. And on this occasion, he wasn’t just about to save a life; he was about to set into motion an event that would stay in the annals of our family history forever.

It all started with a call. I was in my office, likely waiting for something mildly interesting to happen, when the phone rang. My father was on the other end, his voice steady, as it always was when dealing with medical emergencies. He told me he had a patient with abdominal pain, someone from one of those small towns in the Cinco Manantiales region. If you’re not familiar, these are the kinds of places where people still talk about horses as if they’re a viable mode of transportation. There was nothing flashy about this call.

My father had directed the patient to me. But, as it turns out, her husband had other ideas, the sort of ideas that only come from someone who’s both stubborn and confident that Google knows more about medicine than, well, a doctor. The patient’s husband had sent her off to the local SSA health center in Piedras Negras. Apparently, someone there assured her she didn’t need surgery. Brilliant. Because, you know, the best way to deal with severe abdominal pain is to sit it out and hope it goes away like a hangover.

Naturally, my father wasn’t convinced. Neither was I. And when I got to the health center, there she was: a middle-aged woman sitting outside the emergency room, her face contorted in a mix of agony and frustration. She looked like someone who’d been promised a cure but ended up with a placebo made of false hope and a side of “wait it out.” With no time to lose, I took her to the clinic in my car. There, we carried out the usual array of medical exams—blood tests, scans, the whole shebang. And, as I suspected, her case wasn’t going to be solved with an aspirin and a pat on the back. No, she needed surgery, and she needed it right now.

This is where things got, shall we say, interesting. Enter the husband, stage left. He worked in the United States, which probably explained why he thought he knew everything. After hearing the news about the surgery, he promptly demanded a full breakdown of the costs. Hospitalization, operating room, my fees as a gynecologist, fees for the anesthesiologist, assistant, and the instrumentalist. He wanted the whole menu, in clear dollars and cents.

Now, I didn’t have time for negotiations. The woman was in pain, and delaying the surgery any further would be akin to playing Russian roulette with her health. But then, as though he were buying a used car instead of his wife’s health, the husband asked if I’d take the whole thing for a thousand dollars. Yes, you heard that right: one thousand dollars.

I don’t know what it is about the human brain that can equate a life-saving surgery with haggling over the price of a decent flat-screen television, but there we were. I paused for a second, considering the ridiculousness of the situation. But my father’s patient was in serious trouble, and even though the fee was absurdly low, I agreed. Because sometimes, saving a life isn’t about the money, it’s about, well… saving the life.

The surgery was straightforward, medically speaking. We found a twisted ovarian cyst, the size of which would make most people wince. It was removed with the precision of a bomb defusal expert snipping the right wire. The operation went smoothly, the cyst was out, and the woman's condition stabilized. No complications. In the end, it was a textbook case of “get in, remove the problem, get out.”

But the story doesn’t end there. Oh no, that would be too simple.

When the husband arrived to settle the bill, he didn’t hand me a check or whip out his credit card. No, this man came armed with a shoe box. A literal shoe box. He opened it with the kind of reverence usually reserved for grand unveilings, and there it was—a thousand dollars, meticulously saved, all in one-dollar bills. Now, I’ve seen some odd things in my time, but a doctor being paid in single-dollar bills is a new one. At that moment, I was both perplexed and deeply touched. Because this wasn’t just a thousand dollars; this was the sum of his hard work, his sweat, and who knows how many hours of labor across the border in the United States.

He counted the bills out carefully, as if making sure every single one of them was appreciated. And you know what? They were. The shoe box wasn’t just full of money—it was full of the hope and relief of a man who had scraped together everything he had to save his wife’s life.

Afterward, I handed him the ovarian tumor we had removed. He was to send it to the pathology department, which I can only assume added a bizarre epilogue to this already peculiar story. It wasn’t the conventional way these things are handled, but after a shoe box full of dollar bills, nothing surprised me anymore.

The patient recovered without complications, which is, of course, the most important part of the story. But what stayed with me—what still stays with me—was that image of the shoe box. I don’t remember the color of it, or whether it was fancy or plain. But I do remember what it represented. It was a symbol of dedication, love, and trust in a small town where people still value things that modern society too often forgets.

So, no, medicine isn’t glamorous. It’s hard work. Sometimes it’s absurd. Sometimes you’re paid in crumpled one-dollar bills, and other times you go home with stories you’ll never forget. But I think that’s the point. We’re not in it for the money, although the money helps. We’re in it for those moments where we make a difference, no matter how small or strange that difference might be.

And that, dear reader, is worth far more than a thousand dollars in a shoe box.

In-text Citation: (Corona Lozano , 2021, pp. 29-30)