The sudden illness of a colleague is always a shocking surprise. As physicians, we are trained from an early age to ignore our own infirmities in the service of others. Apart from my three C-sections, I have been extremely fortunate in terms of my own health—I can count the number of sick days I’ve taken… Continue reading Weights and Measures
Category: Philosophy of cancer
Cancer and AIDS, AIDS and Cancer
For Dr. Abraham Verghese, who inspires me. This evening on the way home from Boston I finished a book that I had started more than a month ago, on my way back from Albuquerque. Well, that is not entirely truthful. I stopped reading on page 408, because if I had kept going everyone on the… Continue reading Cancer and AIDS, AIDS and Cancer
The Waiting
“The waiting is the hardest part Every day you see one more card You take it on faith, you take it to the heart The waiting is the hardest part.” Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers I’ve never been good at waiting for anything. Instant gratification has been my middle name, and I’ve gotten in… Continue reading The Waiting
Don’t Let Me Talk You Into It
When I was young and foolish and just starting out in my career, I found it very hard to take “NO” for an answer. If a patient needed radiation therapy, and he or she didn’t want to have it, I did my very best to talk that patient into it. I have always been a… Continue reading Don’t Let Me Talk You Into It
What Comes Next?
Multi-tasking has never been my forte and so I like to keep my schedule organized. Mondays, I see all of my on-treatment patients. Tuesdays and Thursdays I see new patients in consultation. Wednesdays are reserved for treatment planning and research projects. But Fridays—well, Fridays are usually the best day of the week. Not only is… Continue reading What Comes Next?
I Coulda Been a Contender
It happened again today. A youngish man, age 59 (youth being relative these days) comes in for a consultation. His history began eighteen months ago when he started to notice hoarseness. Thinking he had laryngitis, he saw his primary care doctor. He was indeed diagnosed with laryngitis despite the fact that he had not been… Continue reading I Coulda Been a Contender
Like a Freight Train
Sometimes, you can see cancer coming. What I mean is that when we sign up for that mammogram, or that PSA blood test, there has to be some tiny little part of us that says, “Ok, this time it’s my turn. This time I’m the one who’s going to get the call.” Sometimes the cancer… Continue reading Like a Freight Train
Rethinking heroism
For Elly I have mentioned in previous essays here that I do not treat pediatric patients–that I learned that I don’t have the temperament for it–but I never said why. The meeting in Boston brought back a flood of memories from the early days of my career, and it is time to revisit some of… Continue reading Rethinking heroism
The Things His Father Taught Him
If you had asked me before today, I would have told you that I was beyond being inspired by cancer stories. There are so many of them, and I have tried to share the ones that have been most meaningful to me with you. But today was different. Today, Teddy Kennedy Jr. gave the keynote… Continue reading The Things His Father Taught Him
Table for One
We’ve been very busy lately, and so it was 6:30 this evening before the last patient was escorted to the linear accelerator to be treated. She had had a compression fracture of a lumbar vertebra last week due to metastatic breast cancer, and had been in excruciating pain despite a procedure called a vertebroplasty, where… Continue reading Table for One