The Hurting

"It hurts"

"He's my life, I can't let him go"

"Is it really that bad?"

"I don't know what to do... should I put him in the nursing home? I just can't take it anymore..."

"I'm ready to die... really, I'm ready"

"Forget it. No way. No hospice. He's going to go out fighting."

"I'm too young to die"

"Phew... thank God, thank God!!! Remission!!!"

"Why did this happen to us?"

Just a sampling from my week. A small sampling. One week. Just another week in the life of an oncologist. My first impulse is to reach for a drink. Seriously. I just want to numb it. I can't bullshit and say that I feel everything for every patient, but man, oh man, it just hurts sometimes.

Cancer is brutal. It robs our dignity. It sucks our lifeblood. It dehumanizes. Yet, it's just amazing how people are sometimes. So funny, so noble, so ironic. Sometimes so angry, so bitter, so vitriolic... yet, all of it, just so, so human.

I feel like crying every Friday. I hang on for the week, just holding on to my sanity and emotions until the cathartic drive home every Friday at around 6 PM. Just reviewing all the sadness of the week.

The woman who survived breast cancer for 10 years only to get a new diagnosis of metastatic esophageal cancer. The 50 year old nonsmoker with Dana Reeve-like metastatic lung cancer. The guy cured from lymphoma who develops leukemia from the prior chemotherapy. The young married guy with myeloma and now the elimination of ever having children. The blood clots, the ulcers, the pneumonias, the kidney failures... the montage of character actor illnesses that accompany every cancer diagnosis.

I hate it. I love this job. I'm depressed. I'm fulfilled. Fuck this shit. Yet, I show up every Monday. Cancer is a bitch, as many of my patients have told me. Damn straight, man. Damn straight.