It’s 6:30 on a Friday night, and I am triaging three admissions to the leukemia service at once. The call from the ED about you makes me pause. I recognize your name – you were my patient a few years before. At the time, you were undergoing chemotherapy for acute myeloid leukemia, and I cared for you during the aftermath. I now pull up your chart and fill in the gaps of the last 2 years. You got into remission and received a bone marrow transplant. For 2 years, you were cured. But today, you are back. The ED has picked up an abundance of blasts – cancer cells – in your blood. I walk to your ED gurney slowly, thinking of how to tell you this. You recognize me, too. And I can see in your eyes that you already know. “I am so sorry this is happening,” I say.
You are here for your third cycle of chemotherapy. It’s a standard check-in. The first cycle was tolerable, the second cycle was rough, and now you are exhausted. You wonder if it’s normal to be so beat up from this. You ask how much nausea is too much nausea. But your hair didn’t fall out – isn’t that strange? Is it a sure thing that it will? And, by the way, is there anything to prevent the neuropathy? You wiggle your fingers as if to emphasize the point. We go through each of your symptoms and strategize ways to make this cycle better than the last. “OK,” you conclude triumphantly. “I got this!”
It’s your 1-month follow-up and it’s time to pivot. After you were diagnosed with an aggressive triple-negative breast cancer, you met with a medical oncologist and a surgeon. Chemotherapy first, they agreed. The chemo would shrink the tumor, they said, so that it could all be scooped out with surgery. The medications were rough, but you knew it was for the best. But now it’s been two cycles and the lump in your breast is getting bigger not smaller. I ask if I may draw on your skin, promising I’ll wash it off. I gently trace the mass in pen and pull out a tape measure. Yes. It is bigger. I listen to your heart and hear it racing. “What now?” you ask.
When you saw your doctor for bloating and were told it’s not gas, actually, but stage 4 cancer, you didn’t cry. You didn’t deny it. You prepared. You called your lawyer and made a will. You contacted your job and planned for retirement. You organized your things so your children wouldn’t have to. Your oncologist recommended palliative chemotherapy as it could give you some more good days. The best case scenario would be 1 year. That was 2½ years ago. You still like to be prepared, you tell me, but that’s on the back burner now. You are busy, after all – your feet still ache from dancing all night in heels at your niece’s wedding last weekend. I pull up your latest PET scan and we look together: Again, wonderfully, everything appears stable. “See you in 3 months,” I say.
You called three times to move up this appointment because you didn’t know if you’d be alive this long. You want a second opinion. When your kidney cancer grew after surgery, two immunotherapy drugs, and a chemotherapy pill, the latest setback has been fevers up to 104 ° with drenching night sweats. They found a deep infection gnawing around the edges of your tumor, and antibiotics aren’t touching it. The only chance to stop the cancer is more chemotherapy, but that could make the infection worse and lead to a rapid demise. You can’t decide. Today, in the exam room, you are sweating. Your temperature is 101 °. Your partner is trying to keep it together, but the crumpled tissues in her hand give it away. She looks at me earnestly: “What would you do if this were your family member?”
You teach about this disease in your classes and never thought it would happen to you. It started simply enough – you were bruising. Your joints ached. Small things; odd things. The ER doctor cleverly noticed that some numbers were off in your blood counts and sent you to a hematology-oncology doctor, who then cleverly ordered a molecular blood test. It was a long shot. He didn’t really expect it to come back with chronic myeloid leukemia. But there it is, and here we are. You return to talk about treatment options. You understand in detail the biology of how they work. What you don’t know is which is best for you. I go through the four choices and unpleasant effects of each. Muscle aches; diarrhea; risk of bleeding; twice a day dosing tied to mealtimes. “Is there an Option 5?” you wonder.
Dr. Ilana Yurkiewicz
You have been in the hospital for 34 days, but who’s counting? You are. Because it has been Thirty. Four. Days. You knew the chemotherapy would suppress your blood counts. Now you know what “impaired immune system” really means. You had the bloodstream bacterial infection, requiring 2 days in the ICU. You had the invasive fungus growing in your lungs. The nurses post a calendar on your wall and kindly fill it in every day with your white blood cell count so you don’t have to ask. For days, it’s the same. Your bag stays packed – “just in case,” you explain. Your spouse diligently keeps your children – 2 and 4 years old – away, as kids are notorious germ factories. Then one Sunday morning and – finally! “Put me on speakerphone,” you tell your spouse. “Daddy is coming home!”
One of the most precious parts of hematology and oncology is the relationships. You are there not just for one difficult moment, but for the journey. I await getting to help you over the years to come. For now, I will settle for snapshots.
Dr. Yurkiewicz is a fellow in hematology and oncology at Stanford (Calif.) University. Follow her on Twitter @ilanayurkiewicz and listen to her each week on the Blood & Cancer podcast.