The shadow of medicine.......

Stalking you like a silhouette death is around every corner. Our job as doctors is to prolong life. No matter what we do death can’t be stopped, so to the best of our abilities, millions of doctors across the world give people a chance to experience life just a little bit longer. However one of the worst feelings in the world is watching a human being disintegrating before your very eyes without any chance of tossing a life line. Today our class experienced this as a whole.

The man was a father of seven, with a wife who’s stronger then anyone I’ve ever met. She stood there as the neurological examination was being preformed, watching her husband who has been reduced to a shell of a man, not being able to perform the simplest of tasks we take for granted. She then told the story of her husband’s symptoms. About how in the past three to five years he never complained of pain and just went about his job. About how she never really knew how badly he was suffering. I was amazed at her composure and fortitude in not breaking down. If I was in her shoes and that were my wife, god knows I’d be an absolute mess.

The father “most likely” has a brain tumor called Glioblastoma multiforme. Survival rate is bleak at best, though it has improved over the years (probably a year tops for this guy). I say "most likely" because the one thing that can definitive tell what is wrong with him is not preformed on the island of St. Lucia. He needs a brain biopsy but no neurosurgeons exist on the island. The only one works for our school but if you are not a resident of the country, then you are not allowed to practice on the island. Now a brain biopsy will not save his life but at least it would allow the doctors to definitively diagnosis his condition and provide treatment to prolong his life. The family though can’t afford to fly to Europe or somewhere else to get this done. So in the end a country with free health care for its residents has pretty much sealed its fate on this poor family.

You always hear about the life saving things do doctors do, or the absolutely tragic deaths that ensue. But you don’t hear about all the ones that you just can’t do anything for. The ones that have the grim reaper following them around stalking them like a silhouette. All you can do is sadly sit back and move on the next patient……