Something incredible happened in clinic this week between a patient and my clinic nurse. It was so heartwarming I wanted to share it here. I met Ms. S in February 2018 after she had curative intent surgery for her stage 3 colon cancer. She was seventy-four then. My clinic nurse, who has been with me […]
Gladys was a test pilot. Her flight plan helped her live almost a decade longer than what was expected based on her diagnosis. Here is her story: Gladys was diagnosed with a stage 3 endometrial cancer in 2007 at the age of sixty. Endometrial cancer is a cancer originating in the lining of the uterus. […]
Dear Patient And Your Loved Ones, I am told of your sighs while you wait to see me in clinic. I get reports from clerks and nurses about you when you ask how much longer it will be because I am taking too long to get to you. I hear about your angry tone of […]
The fifty-four-year-old man across from me this week asked, “How will it happen?” He was sitting beside his wife who had visible tears in her eyes. Her tears had formed a few moments before as I was explaining her husband was barely balancing on the tightrope between life and death. His body was tipping so […]
I have grappled with stranger danger for most of my life. I am shy. I am terrible at small talk. I would rather stick a dull, hot poker stick into the depths of my eyeballs than talk to someone about the weather or make idle chit chat with acquaintances over drinks at a party. Talking […]
Most of the benefits my patients receive from my work as a medical oncologist comes from the drugs I prescribe for their cancers. Some of these drugs can increase cure rates. Some of these drugs do not help cure a cancer but can prolong the life of the cancer patient whose cancer is not curable. […]
The first meeting I had with Mrs. M is burned into a part of my brain. It will stay there as if I’ve been branded, a forever memory. Mrs. M presented to my new patient clinic one year ago. She came with her husband. They were equally lovely, quiet-spoken with delightful Irish accents, highly anxious, […]
“I bet I can guess how old you are in three tries,” I said to the girl who sat in a chair colouring. She was wearing one of those shirts with the kind of sequence beads that can be brushed one way to make one design and another to reveal a different design. I knew […]
“I am too positive to be doubtful, too optimistic to be fearful, and too determined to be defeated.” This is an anonymous quote from the card given out at Marcel’s funeral. Marcel’s wife sent me this card. It is a beautiful quote. From what I knew of Marcel, he embodied these words. Let me help […]
Let me introduce you to four of the patients I have met over the last year. I will introduce them to you in no particular order. I have changed their names to preserve their anonymity. 1) Justin is a fifty-three-year-old indigenous man. I met him and his wife in the summer of 2021. Justin told […]
Join me, through the stories I tell, and see the hope, grit, grace, and love that can be found in a cancer journey.
