I would like to write about EP again this week while he is fresh in my mind. You may remember him from the story I wrote a few months ago entitled, “Addicted To Hope”. EP and I said goodbye this week. Our goodbye has me pondering the different ways we end up walking through life. […]
I had a sad phone call with the wife of one of my patients last week. Her husband died in a neighboring hospital a few days earlier. She called me with questions. I hope my answers gave her solace. Here is the story from my point of view. I met her husband less than a […]
I would like to share a story that was shared with me by a family member of a long-term patient of mine. In my opinion, it is a story about a good death. I don’t know if my patient considered her own death a good one. I hope she did. I met JH five years […]
The most touching thing that happened to me at work over the last few weeks was a handshake. You might remember the patient that gave me this handshake. If not, you can read about him before or after you read this story. I wrote about him a few months ago in my “I Spoke Turtle” […]
I would like to tell you about three new patients I saw back-to-back-to-back last week. All three had the same diagnosis. Each of them also had the same answer to one of my questions. Patient #1, Mrs. B: A sixty-five-year-old woman with stage four adenocarcinoma of the colon diagnosed from an omental biopsy in late […]
I ran my first clinic of 2023 this week. During this clinic I had thirty-two individual patient interactions. These are a few of the people I saw: A forty-two-year-old woman with metastatic ovarian cancer who I was treating on an early phase clinical trial investigating a new drug in advanced cancers. She had been on […]
I met a new patient for a few brief moments last week. She had an impact on me that has and will extend far past the limits of our doctor-patient relationship. I will try to explain how and why. Kelly’s (pseudonym) first appointment with medical oncology was in a resident’s longitudinal clinic. I supervise this […]
It is Friday night as I write this. For most of the last few workdays, I have been preparing for my clinic scheduled for Tuesday September 6. I typically do this work on Monday prior to my full day Tuesday clinic. This week, Monday is a statutory holiday so I will be off enjoying the […]
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 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 […]
Join me, through the stories I tell, and see the hope, grit, grace, and love that can be found in a cancer journey.
