cancer Archives - Page 3 of 13

The Fight of His Life

Julie Kallikkadan Thomas September 3, 2021 10 Comments

During the early months of the COVID pandemic, the Utah medical school where I teach asked me to facilitate a small group of first-year students in Layers of Medicine—a course that covers what you might call the “messy” side of medicine, including end-of-life discussions.

Just after the course started, my dad was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. All at once, I felt my personal and professional responsibilities intersect, unexpectedly and powerfully.

Wreckage

Joan Baranow May 7, 2021 9 Comments

It must have come in a hurry
on a ship of pain, breaching
the weak seawall of her lungs.
The tumor, split from its moorings, set adrift.

Last Patient of the Day

Pamela Adelstein April 30, 2021 9 Comments

Last patient of the day, and of the work week! I was finishing what felt like my Thursday Night Endurance Test, after which I could go home to my family, and eventually to bed.

As on so many Thursdays, I was running behind. My final appointment was with a new patient, Ann Miller. Before entering the exam room, I did some fact-finding.

This Is How You Cope With Cancer

Justine Parker January 22, 2021 10 Comments

Bleach your hair,

get drunk on champagne,

pretend the left and right halves of your face are the exact same,

ignore and deny it, laugh loudly–too loudly,

Watching Cricket With My Dad

Govind Krishnan January 8, 2021 6 Comments

“Nothing in life is certain except death and taxes!” my dad often crows.

This phrase takes me back to my boyhood, watching the Cricket World Cup matches with him. Time and again, I would pray fervently for an Indian win, but watch in increasing desperation as India threw away an insurmountable lead and snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

Schrödinger’s Patient

Kim Gainer November 8, 2019 8 Comments

In a box she waits,
Neither dead nor alive,
Until observed.
In three months,
The box opens.
Tested, probed, scanned,
She learns the cancer has recurred,
In which case she is dead.
Or it has not returned,
In which case she is–not alive.
Boxed in once more,
Neither dead nor alive,
She again awaits the allotted period
Until the box is opened,
A quantum superposition which only death
Can collapse into a state of certainty.

Making Her Night

Deirdre Hennings July 26, 2019 1 Comment

In Central Park twilight,

we drop our holiday mood
like a heavy sweater in the heat
when that call sends us reeling
as leukemia sucks us
into its bell jar, rings
our ears, jangles
minds, reverberates
into bone.

We can’t lower that volume
but distraction is at hand–
tickets to Porgy and Bess—
though I forget it begins
with a knife fight.

What Did the Doctor Say?

Charlotte Grinberg March 29, 2019 11 Comments

Charlotte Grinberg ~

Here’s what they should have told you: “We found cancer in your lymph nodes, your liver, your lungs and your brain. It explains your weight loss, your difficulty breathing and your loss of appetite. This wasn’t just your depression, like you thought. It started in your lungs, and now it’s everywhere. This cancer has been growing for quite some time. You cannot, even with the strongest medications and the longest surgeries, make this cancer disappear. It is too powerful. It is here to stay.”

They should have said, “We wish we had better news, but it looks very serious. Still, we’re here to care for you. We will not let you feel alone. Imagine the place you want to spend

What They Don’t Tell You

Meg Lindsay March 1, 2019 5 Comments

Meg Lindsay ~

After 10 days in a hospital
you regain the ability
to walk albeit with a cane so I put the commode
out in the hall as you are laughing a bit more,
the gleam back, but the chemo starts
and the next morning again pain
in your ribs and sternum
and now it burns
in your chest and again you
can’t make it up the stairs.
A spasm and your body folds into itself,
into the sign of the crab.

The Patient I Didn’t Want

Krithika Kavanoor February 1, 2019 6 Comments

Krithika Kavanoor ~

When I first met Ms. Ruiz, I was barely three months into my first year as a family-medicine resident. I was working harder than I’d ever worked before, and continually facing new challenges. I knew that I was learning, and so I persevered, but opportunities for self-doubt were abundant.

Maybe that was why Ms. Ruiz made such a big impression on me.

A middle-aged woman with a small frame and short black hair, she’d been admitted to the hospital overnight for severe abdominal pain and jaundice. Resting quietly in her bed, she listened intently to my colleague’s presentation of her case, her sharp eyes fixed on his face. I too listened carefully, and gathered that she would be

The Man Who Handed Me His Poop

Allie Gips January 25, 2019 8 Comments

In broken English, against the backdrop of the emergency department’s chaos and clatter, Mr. Simon relayed his story: unintentional weight loss, gradually yellowing skin, weeks of constipation. He punctuated his list of devastating symptoms with laughter–exaggerated but genuine guffaws.

Over the next few days, as the medical student responsible for his care, I was also responsible for handing him piece after piece of bad news. An obstructing gallstone in his bile duct. Actually, an obstructing mass. Likely a malignancy. Chemo. Radiation.

With each update, he would grin. And then he would laugh.

fostering the humanistic practice of medicine publishing personal accounts of illness and healing encouraging health care advocacy

fostering the humanistic practice of medicine publishing personal accounts of illness and healing encouraging health care advocacy

Tag: cancer

The Fight of His Life

Wreckage

Last Patient of the Day

This Is How You Cope With Cancer

Watching Cricket With My Dad

Schrödinger’s Patient

Making Her Night

What Did the Doctor Say?

What They Don’t Tell You

The Patient I Didn’t Want

The Man Who Handed Me His Poop

fostering the humanistic practice of medicine publishing personal accounts of illness and healing encouraging health care advocacy

fostering the humanistic practice of medicine publishing personal accounts of illness and healing encouraging health care advocacy

Tag: cancer

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