While Victoria wouldn’t discuss her mortality with anyone (that was off the table), she resolved herself to conquer whatever the medical team asked of her. Each day she walked further, sat in a chair longer, tried to eat when she could keep things down. The housekeepers stopped by to talk with Victoria every morning. She knew their names, and the names of their children. José spoke of his son’s difficulties with school. Victoria listened and made suggestions. She knew the nurses’ names and concerns as well; how long their commutes were, how they tried to balance the personal and professional demands in their lives.
Over time, Victoria became increasingly grateful for the kindness and compassion of others, whether it came from her husband, Pat, who stayed with her each day (my visits provided necessary respite for him); or from her sons, Nick and Will, whose faces beamed at her from large poster-size photos they had placed in her room; or from the friends who looked after her family, feeding them every day for the eight-plus months of her continuous hospitalization.
Sitting with Victoria allowed me to reconnect with a part of myself I had been suppressing for years. Her courage rubbed off on me. Blood test results set the expectations for each new day. A higher white blood count would allow Victoria the freedom to step from her room into the hallway to take a few steps around her unit, albeit with a thick filtration mask covering her mouth and nose. If her counts were low, she would sit confined to her room, often for days on end, gazing longingly through a sealed window at people six stories below walking the garden paths and at the trees swaying in the breeze.
I went to City of Hope to support my sister, and what I found there was gratitude: appreciation for others; reveling in small pleasures we usually take for granted, like a hot shower, sunlight, a walk outdoors.
Victoria’s gift was a tangible lesson, something I have been able to carry with me. Now I approach patients differently than I did before her illness.
Recently, I met Meghan White, a 34-year-old woman with breast cancer that had metastasized to her brain. I was initially hesitant and fearful as I entered the examining room to see her one afternoon after a long day in clinic. She was going to need me to surgically place a reservoir into her brain to deliver chemotherapy. My colleagues and I also planned to perform focused radiation treatments to two tumors in her brain that were growing quickly. Meghan sat bald and proudly beautiful in my examining room, her mother there to support her.
Previously, I would have thought nothing of her shaved head, but now I understood Meghan had a story to tell. As they were with Victoria, the odds were long against her.
Source : Nytimes
