Dialogue

Person: Can you help me?

Me: I believe that is why I am here, ready with a new treatment, a loaded gun and many tricks up my sleeve.

 P: Is it always this hard?

 M: Yes.

 P: Is there hope?

 M: Without it, we will not survive.

Imagine this dialogue that starts in the pit of someone’s stomach, a mixture of fear, anger, hope, and courage.  I partake in it and I do not dismiss it. Have you ever been afraid?  Where the walls caved in and it seemed confusing? Where what consumed others felt petty, trivial and meaningless. When you sit on the edge of a diagnosis of cancer and are worried about yourself, your family and your loved ones. This is the human I meet, sometimes confused, often afraid, and always hopeful. This is the person from which courage emanates. With this person, I stand united.

Cancer: I am here.

Me: Who are you? And why have you invaded us?

C: I am a product of survival, a state, a process. Who are you?

M: I am here to kill you.

These are my words when I look at cancer, the perfunctory introductions. A long battle is about to ensue. This is the enemy I know well. On this battlefield, a new sword has to be forged, to fight in the face of fear, uncertainty, and discouragement.  Every day a different person walks into my life and stands stronger against this common threat. Our unique existence, our individuality is a paintbrush that brings to life our depths and our dreams. In life, we march only forward regardless of how timid we feel or where our hearts want to be. I sharpen the reality that was thrust upon this person with my words. My patient stands steadfast in trust and belief.

And the dialogue resumes………

 Me: Which way this time? Cancer, are you ready?

 

Fabric

“Is it a myth?” My colleague standing next to me asked in the back room. “Treating cancer, are we really doing anything to help these patients?” I pulled up a scan of a patient diagnosed with melanoma that had spread to the lungs, who was receiving a novel agent and showed the questioner the response. He stared “wow, you are doing something!” As I looked at the end result, I thought it was a masterpiece. How did it come about? Was it just the permissive circumstances this time? Like a painting of a landscape that was itself beautiful, or the weaving of a magical fabric that falls beautifully regardless of the tailor’s skill… or a simple dish with overpowering spices that work every time? I smiled. I’d like to think I am all 3 of them.

I never walk into a room to deliver bad news smiling, and when I am clearly smiling as I enter the room that simple deduction is hard for my patients to make. I had a college student follow me in clinic today and we both walked into the room together. My patient stood up and amicably said hello, in his usual way, we were quickly chattering off, laughs, jokes and playing catch up.

In the midst of it, I tapped him on the shoulder and told him that his scans looked great, there was no evidence that the cancer had come back. He gave me a very solemn look, as he stared back wanting to believe me. “Really Mo?” he asked. “Wow, that is great.” We talked about his fears and where he was in his life. He shared, he no longer was scared the night before the scan, but he really became tense just right after the scan. I told him they needed to increase the medication they give him prior to the scan so he could come in all casual and relaxed. We all roared in laughter.

Then came the hugs. Everyone in the room gave me hugs. My patient startled me with what he said next. It was a truth best expressed from him, and it’s when I do my best listening. He did not talk directly to me but to the college student who was silently observing everything. He said, “Let me tell you something, this man, helped me make a difficult decision, he navigated all my options carefully, not omitting anything, he gave me choices and then showed me the way to go and that is why we chose the treatment, and it worked!”

Ah I thought; don’t dismiss the tailor who weaves a good fabric, the chef and how he adds his signature spice, or the painter who makes colors come alive. I realized I served him well and I still do. He brought alive his thoughts and expressed them to me helping me see through the fabric of his reality.

I listened intently to his thank you, taking it in whole heartedly. His words were heartfelt, and so was my joy.

Mo

Defeated.

Defeated. She sat there, her swollen abdomen so uncomfortable. The news of her heart function excluding her from the clinical trial I had planned on enrolling her in like a trigger to an explosion brought a flood of tears. I pull up a chair and hunker down for my discussion. It is just that, hunkering down. Unafraid to state the truth that things were not going well. I have found myself lately quoting Voltaire quite a bit, “the art of medicine is to amuse the patient and let nature cure the disease.” She was clearly not amused, and nature was not going to cure the disease. Rather, nature was the disease.

My hands grappling with the tissues to absorb the tears. A conversation begins my words weaving a fabric of understanding. We talk about getting her comfortable, removing the fluid, helping the heart a little bit with a medication, and starting our treatments. It was Interesting to see her tears drying up. And she looks at me and says “you are making this up as you go along”…..I smile. Insightful she reads my mind, yes most of the time that is what I do. I am presented with a difficult scenario and as I think out loud, I find the answer. Words buy my brain some time to think, the humor facilitating the delivery of the plan I have to give. The laughs allowing the pauses to deliberate an action that I myself might not have been aware of.

I was in awe of her perception of me. She was slowly coming out of her defeatist state, and she was starting to believe that she could depend on me again. That is the “art”………..oh Voltaire how right you are. Amuse the patient and nature cures the disease. Transformed, my patient begins to see the words I share, the plan of her care now becoming a reality in her brain, she logs on to hope, she redefines trust and she looks at me and says “ you are the man with the plan.” Her husband watches this eagerly, asks the right questions and becomes engaged. She wants to not give up, how many have walked this path. She is smiling…..oh yes this is my victory.

The question is why do they come defeated? I watch this human struggle, and I marvel at how it is overcome………….every time……even if the end result is death. It is not death that we need to conquer, but rather our feelings of defeat (perhaps that is the disease). Death is a part of life, and cancer is a part of nature. It is not a victory for cancer, but for the person who learned quickly to embrace their health, their fight, and their treatment and own it, that even death can be conquered. My friends, it is in our human connection we find the strength to fight some of the hardest unknown that I have come to respect.

-Mo

 

 

2 Minutes

I have been in practice now for 10 years, not counting my training and medical schooling. My practice and approach to patient care has evolved over time. I started blogging 1 year ago, and this has uncovered emotions in me that I did not know existed, and has proved to be an amazing way to communicate with my patients. Comments from readers, friends and family have opened my eyes to a side of cancer care that I had not been before. Through this I have interacted with so many people at different levels in their own inner struggles.

I think of eyes as cameras capturing moments, faces, and emotions with ears recording snippets of conversations, laughs shaking voices and silence when words do not come out. My brain stores memorable events, in short spurts I connect the events, the decisions, the emotions that they stirred, the results they brought about and this hard drive contributes to my thought processes, my experience, my memories, my regrets and my pride. My life story and those of my patients constitute a switchboard of things that worked, things that were close calls, and things that caused harm. These are powerful, invaluable, and unforgettable events pushing me to share it as science, knowledge and a voice in a blog.

I am thinking about those interactions tonight with those who I have met. I am considering, what it would be like if I was granted 2 minutes to talk to each person again. My excitement builds up as I think who and where? In clinic? Or maybe over dinner, in a speed date format? Or better still in the park or at a party? 2 minutes with each: the dead, the living, the survivors, the fighters, the families and the learners. Would I pitch my thoughts or would I share the many things I have learned? Would I start with those I disappointed, or those I had the most success? What would I say?

Tick tock goes the clock and we all know it goes only one way. At the end of my clinic day, looking back at the many hours spent counseling my patients and making decisions, I believe if I did have the “2 minute” stage with each human I have interacted with I would want to say:

“My decisions were empowered by your choices in life and what were important to you given the knowledge I shared. Please know you have added to my experience that goes forward to help someone else and it is never idle. There is no event that you have faced that goes unnoticed and that I remain in your debt for the knowledge that you have kindly shared.”

Thank you.

2 words that capture much more than 2 minutes could ever have.

Mo

 

 

“Stay out of trouble”

“Nice to meet you Dr. Mayhem” he said mispronouncing my last name, but he had me smiling. “A pleasure to meet you too” I replied to my newly formed friend. In the background of the clinic, the laughter this word created reaches out to my depths and pulls out something I have longed to share. If you have seen me in clinic many times, my closing statement to each of my patient is “stay out of trouble.” It’s like my signature. I want to blog about what that actually means and why I say it.

I will start by asking “the” difficult question. One you all know but maybe have never dared to ask. When a patient first gets diagnosed with cancer, be it melanoma or sarcoma or any other type, where do you think their mind goes? In my practice I have watched as my patients go to thoughts of death first. This is exceptionally vivid when I am the one who introduces this particular thought to them.  There is an awkward silence that usually follows. It is not awkward for me as I am the one being silent. This is broken on many occasions by a deep sadness, an overwhelming emotion that fills tears in everyone’s eyes who are watching. I create the space in time to accommodate and acknowledge this feeling. Silence has an end, it is not never-ending. My patients get into “trouble” trying to understand their cancer, their disease, their plan and how it is to be executed.  They are never left to do this alone. I will admit that initially they are lead to believe they are.

Truth has a responsibility of being clear, sharp and honest. Telling a patient that they have a terminal cancer is no easy task. Yet I do that daily, begging the question from the observers of “how do you do this?”  To answer this statement of “stay out of trouble”, when asked to do the same, I end up saying “no I will not” because I am at the heart of it.  I have marveled at the psychology of the irrational fear of death that drives us towards a helplessness that cripples us to give up. I journey deep into these “hot waters” pulling my patients out of an irreversible outcome. No one does it better than the person on this journey and I end up learning so much from each of my friends as they face this certainty. So I walk beside them and find myself saying simply “stay out of trouble”.

I usually say it as I leave the room; I point and stare deep into my friend’s eyes as I say it. I mean it; it is a real, reflex almost. I fought hard to get them out of the tribulation that they are being faced with. I want them to live fully and embrace what moments they have left. As important, I also point at those around them reminding them of the diamond that sits amongst them, that soon they may be forced to part with.

Stay out of trouble my friends.

Mo