Fishy looking

What a depressing day! Not that being in oncology is the most delightful, upbeat area to be working in, but most days, it is good. Patients are fighting their disease, we make their pain go away albeit temporarily, they get to go home until their next round of chemo. Things are on average good. Today is not so much the case.
One of our dear patients passed away yesterday. His family was one of the ones we were adopting. I am always a little leary of designating a family to shower with gifts because inevitably the patient does not make it to the holiday. On a good year, they get better and get to go home, but not this year.
I have a 37 year old whose sarcoma has spread to his eye and has grown so quickly that his eye is bulging out of his head, thankfully covered still in also swollen eyelid. Imagine those goldfish with the google eyes. He has a hard time talking, since they had to take a chunk of his tongue and palate out. My other patient does not get to go home either because those headaches, well, they are from a raging infection in his sinuses. No Mexico surf trip like he was planning. I guess San Diego is still better than being stuck in Idaho.
My heartbreaker for the day is the 32 year old who finally got the news that her fears are confirmed, and she will be living, hopefully for the next 4-6 weeks at best. For me, what makes it worse is that she just wants to sleep. She is trying to take enough ativan, benadryl, anything to let her sleep and "get away from it all" for as long as possible. How can you want to sleep the last few days of your life away? Ativan does not make the cancer go away. I wish she could just realize that this is her chance to do anything she had always wanted to do, rather than trying to hide and make it go away. I can't imagine having a death sentence hanging over my head, though, and we never know how we will react until we are in a particular situation ourselves. I like to think that I would be strong enough to say enough is enough with the chemo and just find as many ways as possible to live to the fullest any day I have left. This is why I am not going to wait until it is too late to do the things I have always wanted to do. I don't want to have to have a death sentence over my head to take the time to go see the things that are only in pictures, or tell the people I love how much I love them. I don't want to die with unfinished business. It is good to be me, and I am grateful for the opportunity to live like I mean it. It is so easy to get lulled into "just get through life" and postpone the things that don't seem important. But I think those things, the dreams and hopes, those are the things to live for. Some day, when I am staring at the wall while drooling on my pillow in the old folk home, I don't want to wish I had. I want to let the mental movies roll, and relive my glory days. And by the way, every day you live is a glory day.