This topic was written by : Dr.Marianne DiNapoli 1) My patient with terminal breast cancer. This woman put off going to the doctor for years after she found a lump in her breast. A mix of denial and fear prevented her from seeking medical attention until the tumor had grown to the size of a volleyball on her chest. It was bleeding, infected, and smelled like death. Hearing her story and seeing her breast was devastating, and I hope to never see a cancer as advanced as that again. 2) The baby without a brain. This poor child had multiple developmental anomalies that caused his head to be malformed. The mother made the choice to carry her fetus to term, knowing that the baby would live only a few precious hours. I assisted in the delivery, and watching the parents cradle an infant that looked so unlike most babies was heartbreaking. I wished I could take some of their pain away, but there is nothing you can say to parents grieving as much as they were. 3) My post-surgical patient. Multiple invasive abdominal operations for this patient’s cancer left her with a wound that would not heal. She needed a device called a wound vac, which offers permanent suction over the wound to allow it to close. When I was assisting my resident in changing the suction device, I saw her foot-long wound gaping open. My resident remarked that the wound was healing nicely, to which the patient looked down and exclaimed, “It’s beautiful!” She was looking at a massive hole in her body, and was dying, but she still managed to see the positive side of her situation. I will always remember her optimism in the face of her horrifying illness. Source
