He was only two years old.
“Doctor, he keeps falling.”
He sat quietly in his hospital cot, followed instructions obediently. His eyes didn’t move right. He couldn’t walk in a straight line, veered to one side, clung to his mother.
The computed tomography suite was cold at night. Our hearts grew colder as multiple images of the tumour in his brainstem flashed across the computer screen.
His mother took one look at our faces as we emerged from the radiology suite, and knew.
How do you couch such devastating news? How do you say just what this mother and father need to hear to help them cope in that awful moment?
Lord, guide my tongue. Help me help them.
They listened, asked questions, sought to understand the proposed course of action. Later, they would ask the same questions again. Parents can be so amazingly strong. Still, they are human. That night, they put their tears aside for later.
He was in surgery by morning. In the ICU by afternoon.
Chemotherapy made him sick, made his hair fall out. He was so quiet on the oncology ward, sitting on his bed in the corner of the cubicle.
I wish I hadn’t been on call again the next time something horrible happened to him.
“Doctor, he can’t move his legs!”
It took a while to get the MRI scan done. A dour radiologist confirmed spinal cord compression from metastases. Lord, put the right words into my mouth. His mother’s face was devoid of expression. Perhaps she was praying too, inside.
He died a few months ago. I would have liked to have told his parents how sorry I was, to have them forgive me for the agony the news I brought must have caused them. I would have prayed that my words would have taken some of the pain away.
Oh Lord, take him to heaven with you. And if it is Your Will, please take away his parents’ pain.
~ by Dr Alison Snodgrass
Dr’s Blog is a feature of the CMG web site that aims to encourage interaction between Guild members. We hope to foster a spirit of community through the sharing of thoughts and personal experirences. The opinions expressed in these blogs are entirely those of the contributors and not of the Catholic Medical Guild of Singapore.
Interested in contributing articles to the Doctor’s Blog? Send us your contributions in word document to cmgsingapore@yahoo.com.sg
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