This is what I get to enjoy almost everyday after my swim, on the way home. It helps when I'm stuck in the traffic, especially for the past couple of days when the city's in a frenzy preparing to host the national level Independence Day celebration on the 31st of AUGUST. The traffic jam can be quite unbearable.
__________
It rained really hard in the morning before dawn and the rain persisted in drizzle right up to late morning. So the whole day was rather chilly, and not even a glimpse of the sun. The thought of swimming in what I imagined could have been icey cold water in the pool deterred me from my daily swim today.
As if the day wasn't somber enough, my family received news late evening that my uncle (my dad's older brother) was diagnosed with kidney cancer, and would require surgery to remove the left kidney on Monday.
It was extra devastating for the extended family because of 2 reasons:
1) my uncle was told by the doctors (in Singapore) 2 days ago after a battery of tests that his kidneys and bladder were fine, and were not the source of his haematuria (blood in the urine)... but because his haematuria did not improve for the subsequent 2 days, they reinvestigated him, and now they are are telling him that he has kidney cancer, and he needs a nephrectomy.
2) my uncle's a cancer survivor, diagnosed with lymphoma almost 10 years ago, which he recovered, and then he had a relapse several years back, but apparently recovered.
And now this again. Other details are fuzzy because now he's refused to receive any visitors in the hospital, and he's not answering any calls. And his wife, my aunt, is very disorientated, but being the bossy and very "datin" that she is, she driving the doctors crazy in the hospital.
I don't know how true, but my other aunt told my mum that one of the doctors even said to nurse, "Please ask somebody to bring this crazy lady shopping! I can't stand her anymore!"
How unbecoming. At least have the decency to be discreet. I know my aunt can be quite annoying, but the news is a terrible blow to her. And she paying top $$$ to that private hospital. I haven't started practising, but a little sympathy is in order? No, Doctor?
"Common sense is not so common after all", I quote one of my favourite lecturers, Dr. Pubalan.
I wasn't as affected by the news because I guess I'm immune to all these... the first thing that raced through my mind was my sessions in med school on breaking bad news... and all those role-playing sessions... when I was the doctor breaking the news to a woman diagnosed with breast cancer, and counseling a young man found to be HIV positive.
Maybe it did sort of affect me in the sense that I was searching in myself the way I should react, and searching how I should be feeling... it's hard because we learnt how to be the strong one, the saviour, the comforter, in such predicaments in med school. We learnt never to falter no matter what.
But I'm ok. I'm only worried about how I should talk or conduct myself if I meet his family. And this I imagine in my head after my uncle dies during one of the family gatherings. Eeeesh.
My mum's brother had epigastric discomfort some months back, new onset at age 60... his physician ordered endoscopy and tumour marker. He asked me why, so I explained about H. pylori, ulcers, gastritis, and worst case scenario, gastric cancer. I was doing the medical student thingy... and I apparently freaked him out, and up to now, he's stalling on the endoscopy!
I'm very disturbed about that. My mum told me that her brother's a wuss, so I should choose some of my words more wisely.
Am I soooo insensitive?
Back to my uncle with kidney cancer...
So I really at this juncture do not know what the prognosis is like for my uncle. I don't know the stage of his cancer, whether its a primary kidney tumour or his lymphoma... but I'm assuming that it's early stage because they are actually doing the nephrectomy.
Yup, papa's right... all we can do is to pray for him. Whatever the outcome, we believe he's in God's hands.
So, while it's uncertain days ahead for my uncle, life goes on for the rest of us.
Sunday, 27 August 2006
Life
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7 comments:
Hey Sharon, all the best with regards to your uncle. And no ur not insensitive, I was emotionless as well when my mum told me my aunt had stage 3 bladder cancer that had metastasized to her uterus. I first thought was okay, we know the problem: what are the facts and what are our options? Have we done the proper checks? Who's the specialist? What's the action plan etc. Which is what we would have done in the hospital I worked at. I handled it like one of the cases. It was an automatic reaction, which is prolly what u did? Some people might find it diconcerting, but I find a lot of health professionals are emotionally detached because they have to view their patients from an objective viewpoint otherwise nothing would ever get done. I don't mean we shouldn't empathize with them, but we can't afford to get so emotionally invested in them that disrupts everything else.
It just so happens that we deal with personal cases the same way.
life goes on,la di da...cancer makes other things we talk about n do everyday inconsequential...but life goes on.we jus pray it never strikes too close to home.
davi: thanks. i do think about the management of his condition, but because i'm very confident that the doctors are doing their jobs, so i don't want to dwell on these issues, because it's an unnecessary extra source of stress to the family. because i see essentially they don't really care who's doing what and where, they just want to hear that he's going to get better. that, nobody can give them.
bren: yup, but you know i have been having thoughts throughout med school about what if i get cancer? i concluded not so long ago, that it doesn't matter how i die, just with the least suffering... so the issue is whether i would want to undergo all the invasive treatments....
sharon: no, u're not insensitive, i told a chick before, when u're in the med line, sometimes u get desensitised to things, because yup, like davi says, we need to emotionally distance ourselves so that we can make sure we get the right things done at the right time. or at least we try our best to do so. though sometimes,like my lecturer once said, it's hard when u try to put things in the patients' shoes. and we ARE dealing with frightened humans after all. the general rule i was taught was to not tell things they don't really need to know. but then again, as in one instance, when some of my coursemates had a case of a baby with no heartbeat, how do you break such a news to the mother? it's difficult, isn't it? no one likes to be the bearer of bad news....
as for the invasive treatments, i don't know. i don't think any of us has the right answer
hi Sharon! this is the 1st time i put a comment & i reads your blog becos you are very cute and smart.may i know what digicam you are using currently ?:- ahfeiko.
dida: thanks for the sharing... :)
ahfeiko: i'm using CANON IXUS 60... it's a really good camera!
somber somber...exactly matches my mood this morning. :(
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