Love Note to God, Father. Posted on 1st Jan 1970, 12:00am by admin

Dear Father,

Someone else got diagnosed with

end stage lung cancer-

Another nice, small, old lady who could

not stop saying

“thank you”,

as we but came to examine her.

She had a cough for a month, but it was mild,

and only when she was too breathless one day

did she come to hospital,

only to be found that half her right lung was opaque with tumour.

This extensiveness convinced me it was a lost cause,

yet an oncologist grabbed hard at the

thin straw of ‘chylous pleural effusion’

to urge a histological diagnosis, just in case this was treatable lymphoma.

But there was no easy way for a tissue biopsy-

Sputum cytology was negative, so was the pleural fluid cytology.

The only palpable lymph nodes were tiny and likely, only reactive.

Somehow, this oncologist’s passion for not letting

treatable cancers go, shone through

and she was brought to the operating theatre,

where the surgeons found a surprisingly large, and accessible lymph node for

excision under local anesthesia.

The pathologists were informed immediately and on standby

and a few hours later they had come up with differentials

– very poorly differentiated cells, but there was a chance.

This could be treatable cancer.

It was only 17 hours later,

while all the immunostaining set in that the verdict had come.

She indeed had non-treatable cancer and

would die.

The oncologist and his team prepared the patient and her family for the worst

and began palliative care.

I was very worried at the beginning that the number of investigations we were doing would be giving

her false hope,

giving her less time to prepare for a “good” death.

I was very worried about the toxic chemotherapy

which would make her last days

mere pain and suffering.

It turns out, we are all glad

we

gave her a chance.

The oncology team is hopeful Iressa would give her more time,

while the palliative team is working on preparing her for the inevitable..

Dear God, Father,

is this why

some of us are oncologists-

ever hopeful , never letting go of what’s treatable?

and why, some of us are palliative doctors-

strong in the face of death and even more so, in the face of

the dying?

And is this why,

I, who respond to “Doctor!”

feel this warmth in my heart,

and hear Your gentle prompting,

calling me to treat when I can, and care

when I can’t?

By “Hoping to aspire”.