2019

It was 1962. I was in my third year of medical residency at Philadelphia General Hospital, the only charity hospital in the city.

I was in the outpatient clinic, seeing an African-American patient for the first time. I noted that he was on an anticoagulant, Dicoumaral (similar to Coumadin).

His prothrombin time (a test that indicates the level of blood thinning) was very low—in fact, outside of the therapeutic range. When the range is too low (meaning the blood is too thick) or too high (the blood is too thin), the patient is at risk for serious complications such as clotting or hemorraghing.

Without thinking, I said, “You must not be taking your medicine.”

Always occupied with the needs of others, medical students often put their needs and wants aside. Sometimes for an unhealthily long time.

Although the consequences of such self-inhibition are not readily apparent, they can have an insidious impact on academic and clinical performance. But the story I am about to tell is something far worse.

I ambled with squirrels and rabbits on an urban trail overflowing with chaparral and mossy oak. Early morning bird chatter, drone of bugs in rays of sun, and the crackle of underbrush beneath my feet kept me company. My thoughts wandered brisk as the sound of river water on rock.

A man wearing a holey T-shirt and sweatpants approached me, accompanied by a large German Shepherd. The dog was off leash but seemed friendly. The man had a vacant stare, and as I passed him I gave a perfunctory smile and “Good morning.”

He didn’t even note my existence nor change his faraway gaze, and I immediately snickered at his lack of basic human decency. Shaking my head, I glanced back at him. He had stopped, looking up at the cloud-threshed sky, and suddenly emitted an unearthly wail.

The movie, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, became popular the year I was working on my hospital’s med/surg psych ward as a nursing student. While this cult classic raised awareness about injustices in mental institutions, the public assumed all administrative nurses were cut from the same cloth as the film’s RN whose name rhymed with wretched. On more than one occasion, I had to restrain myself when someone said, “Bet you’re Nurse Ratched, ha, ha, ha. Only kidding.”

When Joan was in last week and told me she had just completed chemotherapy for breast cancer, I assumed congratulations were in order. When I smiled and offered them, she suddenly became forlorn and began to cry. And these were not tears of joy.

At thirty-six, I had my first child. Up until then, my focus was on my career to become an ob/gyn physician.

During my pregnancy, I chose a doctor and hospital that were not affliated with my hospital. I wanted to be a patient, not a doctor who happened to be pregnant. I ended up having a scheduled C-section; my child was breech, and no amount of encouragement would change that. 

As soon as my OB walked into the operating room, he loudly announced, “She is an OB too!” And, in an instant, the cat was out of the bag. No longer could I be anonymous. 

I was called to the NICU to see a baby who had just born with hydrocephalus. The CT scan showed he had Dandy-Walker syndrome. His teenage parents were told he would be severely handicapped, so they refused permission for a shunt and wanted him to die. The NICU staff was horrified and asked me (the neurologist), “They can’t really do that, can they?” I said no they can’t, and immediately called the hospital lawyer. She brought a judge into the NICU who agreed, obtained legal custody and assigned guardianship to a local advocacy agency. The new guardian authorized the shunt which worked well. The boy was discharged into foster care and eventually adopted.

But then it got really interesting. Yes, he had Dandy-Walker syndrome and hydrocephalus, but he was developing normally!

 

If I did not ask, I would have assumed regaining muscle control was the “chief complaint” of the young man I was caring for during my brain injury elective. He was an active college student up until a few months ago when a tragic accident left him wheelchair-bound and dependent on nursing staff for even the smallest of tasks. 

 

The first time we met, he introduced himself to me through a laminated copy of the alphabet. Spelling out his name took some time, due to the severe spasticity that still engulfed his musculoskeletal system, but it was his only means of communication due to the loss of control of his vocal cords. 

 

“I am here to join your care team,” I had told him. “I want to help you work on facing your biggest problem right now. Can you tell me what that is?”

When I first met my future sister-in-law—I was fifteen, she was seventeen—I assumed that her life was perfect. She was pretty, perky and popular—everything I was not. She was dating my brother, a medical school student, while I had never been on a date. I just knew her life would be a fairy tale with a happily-ever-after ending.

I had breast cancer twice. My first time I made an educated choice not to start aromatase inhibitors (AIs). With early stage premenopausal cancer, overall survival rates were the same, on or off AIs. (There is 13% increased chance of reoccurrence off AIs). I chose survival rates and lifestyle. I am very active and wanted to avoid muscle and joint aches, osteoporosis and possible diabetes.  

I felt like I was in Vegas, spinning in Russian Roulette. I chose the wrong number and lost. Two years later, I grew another breast cancer on the same side, in breast tissue remaining after my mastectomy. Now there were two metastases in axillary lymph nodes. My survival rates markedly declined. I had difficult choices to try to improve my odds.