Cancer

One of my patients is sick. Someone I have known a while, who I have a standing relationship with...he's sick. He has had cancer a while but tonight when I saw him...well, now he is sick. Sick with cancer which will likely kill him.

I did not want to talk to him about his death. I did not want to play chaplain. I wanted to pretend the reality away. The reality is, someone I care about is dying.

I want to fight, but the fight is not mine to have. I want to smile it away, but it does not work like this. I can not polly-anna my way out of someone else's cancer. This one, this patient, will be tough. This will be on my watch I suppose...

I face a lot of dying but this dying is harder because it is not someone else's, this dying is mine in a different way.

And it is harder because I have seen the transition from well to less-so. I saw him healthy and now I see him as his health has taken a step back. It may still return, but the abandonment of health has happened once. And once is all it takes. Poor health is like a lover that cheats. You can forgive the affair but you can never forget that it happened, the trust—if it happened once, it can happen again.

And in this case, it likely will.