Archives of The Cheerful Oncologist, Volume 2

While joyfully skipping along from hospital to hospital during a bout of weekend call recently I was asked to consult on an inpatient. This should not come as a surprise since that is exactly what on-call doctors do, compared with scrambling an F-18 and streaking off into the wild blue to vaporize a squadron of mustache-stroking evildoers. The trouble with this consult was that I had already been slaving away all morning and was looking forward to paying a visit to the local hot dog stand for some grub of perhaps dubious nutritional value. Unless I was about to renounce my vows for duty and humanity lunch would have to wait. Therefore I soon stood at a nurse’s station absorbing the minutiae of this chart in question. The consult seemed straightforward to me - a malignant tumor had been resected and the surgeon wanted to know if adjuvant chemotherapy should be given. Aiming the chassis toward the patient’s room, I rumbled on over to begin the interview. My only concern at that time was that the patient was well into her eighties. Would she be able to tolerate these treatments? Would she even want to consider taking them? My stomach emitted a gurgle of disapproval as I knocked and entered.

Behind the door rested a wizened woman with a proud look on her face, sitting high enough up in bed to allay any fears that she had faltered during her recuperation [the sicker the patient, the lower the head rests according to the C. O., but what does he know? -Ed.]. In fact, she was in the act of polishing off what appeared to be either a bowl of lemon sherbert or the dregs of her facial cream. As I began my spiel, also known as establishing rapport with the patient she asked me to sit down. Before any formal inquiries could be launched she quickly gave me a look like a vacationer who has just bitten into a rotten mango.

“I don’t know why on earth I agreed to let them operate on me,” she barked. Before I could even produce a soothing phrase or two she launched into a breathless diatribe about how miserable she was while imprisoned here, peppering her comments with crisp exhortations for the Lord to shine the Flashlight of Mercy downward toward our little room. After a couple of minutes of listening to her I half expected to hear the rumblings of giant corpse-filled wagons in the street and the cry of “Bring out your dead!” Surely her hospital stay wasn’t all bad, I suggested. She turned to me and recited a heartfelt comment that could be interpreted by the skeptic as expressing a noticeable level of insensitivity in my choice of careers.

Uh Oh, I thought - better hang on for dear life and jump in when the foot seems to ease up on the accelerator. For the next act of our little drama I sat silently while she complained, nodding my head so much I looked like a sufferer of rampant titubation. My mind and eyes began to wander - even a rant if continued long enough can induce tedium in the poor listener. I was desperate to either form a bond with this patient, allowing me to get on with the consult (and then on to lunch), or fake a catastrophe that would permit a sudden exodus from the room - the bite of the black widow spider came to mind.

Amazingly in all this consternation over her lamentation I had missed a prominent display placed next to this woman’s bed - two large framed color photographs of her standing next to a distinguished white-haired gentleman in a dark suit. The happy couple beamed from their glass frames, and this gave me a idea. What better way to bring the bluebird of happiness back into the room than to fill her senses with praise for the man in her life? Ignoring the kettle-drum concert emanating from my stomach I interrupted her with the compliment, phrased in the form of a question:

“Who is that handsome man in the picture with you?”

My luncheon that day was particularly satisfying - the bread of my sandwich was (mirabile visu!) only slightly soggy, and the reverse-osmosis cleansing of my bottle of water gave me a sense of peace found only previously while standing on the rim of the Grand Canyon during sunset. As I polished off the last few remaining crumbs a smile deigned to appear on my lips. My consult was finished and I was free to enjoy the remainder of a Saturday that turned out to be too hot for wives to order the chain gang of husbands and sons back outside to clear brush. I thought of my newest patient as I zoomed off toward home. Bless her heart, she not only gave me one answer but a double response to my query. She replied:

“That’s my husband! Who do you think it is?”

Then she added: “He’s worthless and useless - doesn’t lift a finger to help me and is losing his mind.”

Ah, there’s nothing like rekindling fond family memories to ease the heartache of a hospitalization. It’s comforting to know that my conversational skills are still as refined as when I was asking girls in mini-skirts to dance to the beat of The Carpenters. I’ll bet those photographs find their way safely home and will soon rest once again on the piano or the bedroom dresser. I regret that I couldn’t stick around to hear the saga hidden within them but we doctors know when it’s time to hold hands, and when it’s time to saddle up the sturdy steed and give out a hearty “Hi Yo, Silver!” before some poor nurse finds us sound asleep in a corner of a room, drooling into a wastebasket. I’ll keep this in mind the next time I find myself barging into someone’s life - which should be in about twelve hours.