“A tumor is a form of cancer...” I explained, “…but not all tumors have spread. Does that make sense?” I asked purposefully, slowly, with a grave and sallow voice. Meanwhile, the interpreter on the telephone was fucking up my tone. He spoke too loudly, too quickly, too high-pitched, too ‘literal.’ “Shit,” I thought, this is not how I wanted to break the news
I figured out what he actually knew and didn’t by the way his chest heaved when I said the word “cancer,” the way his jaundiced eyes darted across the room, the way he clutched his rosary beads and bible closer. The private hospital down the street that sent him spoke of a “tumor” in his gallbladder, but cancer? This was apparently a very different story.
I clicked through his CT scan and foresaw what was in store for him. His otherwise healthy forty-two year-old body would start to fail him. He would slide uncontrollably into a self that wasn’t his, one that would distend and itch and swell and yellow in the coming weeks. I knew, because my own mother’s body betrayed her in the same way. She would die within four months of her diagnosis, leaving me to wonder whether she would have been better off without aggressive treatments that left her unable to get out of bed.
“Are there different kinds of cancer or just one?” he asked pleadingly, hoping the answer would somehow change what had been set in stone. I walked him through my thoughts and the next steps we would need to take prove our suspicions, though mostly as way to offset the burden of truth. Deep down, all I really wanted was for him to forever be out of this ER room and to be with his family.
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Rob's BIo is below keep scroling
Dr. Rob
EM Resident. Hobbies: Climbing on rocks aka rock climbing