Last night marked the last TGIF yoga class from the teacher who has been there since well before I started med school. It was a momentous occasion: I've attended this class every single Friday night that I've been in Albany over the past two years. Friends have changed, apartment has changed, schedule has changed, I've changed, and this yoga class has been there the whole time. It reminded me of when I finally moved away from Boston, I realized that the most consistent companions I'd had over the six years post-high school (besides my family) were not my friends or my co-workers but the kids I babysat for every week. These are background patterns I take for granted.
It was an unexpectedly sad and amazing week on pulmonary outpatient clinic. For the first time in my career as a med student, I was fascinated and impressed by the rare cases as opposed to the mundane: nocardia pneumonia with a healing abscess, acquired pulmonary alveolar proteinosis, two patients both alive and well five years after diagnoses of lung cancer with brain metastases. In the past I've felt that the rare cases, while "cool," don't reflect what we really need to learn to manage most patients, nor do they encourage empathy for the suffering person. I'll take this as one more instance in which I'm becoming culturally more similar to the rest of my profession.
Friday ended with a pair of sisters--fairly young, fit and healthy-looking women in their early sixties (one thing I've learned this week is that my "healthy-looking" sensor can be way off)--sitting before me in the exam room. One of them was just diagnosed with lung cancer in May and had the entire right lower lobe of her lung removed in June. She was now suffering from bloody pleural effusions and her sister was there with her to learn how to drain the fluid at home. What a mental shift that must have been for both of them: one previously healthy to sick and missing a huge piece of lung; the other now taking on a caretaking role. Both seemed to be taking it in stride: cheerful, matter-of-fact, not grossed-out, hopeful yet concerned about prognosis. I was so impressed.
So this week was tinged with endings, both of the new-beginnings kind and of the beginning-of-the-end kind. Let's be thankful for the former.
It was an unexpectedly sad and amazing week on pulmonary outpatient clinic. For the first time in my career as a med student, I was fascinated and impressed by the rare cases as opposed to the mundane: nocardia pneumonia with a healing abscess, acquired pulmonary alveolar proteinosis, two patients both alive and well five years after diagnoses of lung cancer with brain metastases. In the past I've felt that the rare cases, while "cool," don't reflect what we really need to learn to manage most patients, nor do they encourage empathy for the suffering person. I'll take this as one more instance in which I'm becoming culturally more similar to the rest of my profession.
Friday ended with a pair of sisters--fairly young, fit and healthy-looking women in their early sixties (one thing I've learned this week is that my "healthy-looking" sensor can be way off)--sitting before me in the exam room. One of them was just diagnosed with lung cancer in May and had the entire right lower lobe of her lung removed in June. She was now suffering from bloody pleural effusions and her sister was there with her to learn how to drain the fluid at home. What a mental shift that must have been for both of them: one previously healthy to sick and missing a huge piece of lung; the other now taking on a caretaking role. Both seemed to be taking it in stride: cheerful, matter-of-fact, not grossed-out, hopeful yet concerned about prognosis. I was so impressed.
So this week was tinged with endings, both of the new-beginnings kind and of the beginning-of-the-end kind. Let's be thankful for the former.
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