NPR: Don't Forget the Wounded

My Cancer

Don't Forget the Wounded

My nurses are really very good. They stick a needle in your arm, draw blood and have it out almost before you know it. I've become friends with several of them. I was something of a curiosity at first, because apparently the veins in my arms go crosswise instead of lengthwise. I'm not sure what, if anything, that means, but they seemed interested.

I was in this morning for bloodwork. They always draw blood into a couple of color-coded tubes. About an hour later, I'm given a printout with numbers that I really don't understand. I usually just ask my chemo nurse if there's anything to worry about.

I was talking with the nurse who drew my blood this morning. It was the usual: complaining about the heat, traffic and all that. But then she said that she was going to a meeting where, for the first time, they were going to offer counseling to the nurses.

She said that it is so hard for them because they lose virtually all of their patients. They only deal with cancer patients. She said that one man came in yesterday who was her age. She started to cry. It was worse a couple of years ago, she said, when the sadness and grief became almost too much to bear.

I've wondered about this a lot. The nurses and doctors do so much to try to save cancer patients even when they know that in most cases, it's a losing battle. They make friends with patients only to lose them, but then they are replaced by new patients, and new ones after them as the cancer epidemic just continues to roll.

How do they deal with it? How are they able to get up each morning and come to work? I don't know. I don't know where they get the strength.

I guess like any other war, when we talk about the war on cancer, we tend to focus on the fatalities. But like any other war, we need to make sure that we don't forget the wounded.

6:34 AM ET | 07-24-2006 | permalink

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Dearest Leroy — Doctors and nurses today see many of their cancer patients recover. I swear they do. The nurse at my oncologist's office told me that many patients have been returning for their annual checkups for 14-15 years. I am a HER2 breast cancer survivor. I know women like me who were given a few months to live eight years ago and are still kicking thanks to chemo and new drugs. It is true that oncology doctors and nurses see a lot of death, but these days they are seeing less. Keep the faith, dearest Leroy.

Sent by MJO | 1:15 PM ET | 07-24-2006

My mother was one of those nurses you mention. She spent years in the ward reserved for the most serious cancer cases. We always knew when she had lost someone. And even though she had been taught the mantra "don't take it home" it was impossible for her to not express her sense of loss.

Several years after her retirement, she was diagnosed with cancer. Her trust in her colleagues and faith in the doctors she had worked with gave her strength.

Her faith gave us strength. Strength begets strength. As each of us soldiers on in the face of the "C" word, it gives strength and maybe hope to those around us.

I have learned in recent years that I am watched. Not just by my children, but by my peers. Unknown others come to me years later and say that seeing my behavior in times of stress enabled them to fight their own battles more courageously. Thanks to you for sharing your courage with me.

And finally, thank you for acknowledging my rock, my hero who taught me to be cheerful in the face of adversity, my mother. Her name was Billy with a "Y" and she was my mom. Peace.

Sent by Robert W. Smith | 6:29 PM ET | 07-24-2006

Hi, Leroy. As I mentioned in my other post, I've been an RN for 24 years, and have HIV. I know how it feels. In fact, after I was diagnosed, having to treat HIV patients, and seeing the failing ones, the ones who were thin, malnourished and not long for this world, I would walk out of their rooms trembling all over.

It's never easy when you see someone die. Not even if they're 101, but at least then, you know they've had a good run of it. When they're "young," when they're "your age," it's totally different.

And quite frankly, when you see it from this angle, there are no words for it.

At least none that I can think of.

Sent by Robert | 6:50 PM ET | 07-24-2006

You ask how doctors and nurses deal with the losses and grief. Well, I'm a cancer doctor, and I've come to realize that this is part of my work— that I can't really be a healer unless I take care of myself enough to be resilient and hopeful. I get my strength from talking to people like you. Thanks for your blog.

Sent by Anthony Back, M.D. | 9:42 AM ET | 07-31-2006

My dad died with lung cancer. He was not a smoker but worked where there were peopled that smoked. A few years ago I developed a mass in my left lung. My Dr. ordered a biopsy yet he knew it was cancer. I am a Christian and was never troubled about it and told the doctor that. I knew Christ to be a healer and that I was a winner either way. When I went for the biopsy the mass had shrunk and it wasn't done. The doctor got upset and ordered it done again. When I went into the hospital there was nothing to biopsy! My doctor was amazed and couldn't understand it. I even saw it on the xray myself and then the xray where it was gone. I repeated to him that I serve a living God who heals. I still know that no matter what I am a winner either way.

Sent by Darlene Pruitt | 9:32 AM ET | 05-24-2007

I used to work on an inpatient unit in a hospital, and some of the patients on this unit had cancer. One day I was sitting at the nurses's station when one of the attending physicians sat down next to me, looking utterly exhausted.

"How do you do it?" I asked her. "How do you work day in and day out, and all the while knowing that most of your patients are going to..." I faltered over the next word, but she didn't.

"To die?" she finished, with a tired but slightly amused smile on her face.

"Exactly," I said eagerly and with relief, feeling that I was over the hump.

She didn't think about it for very long. Just a couple of seconds, and then with great care and deliberation, she said, "I do it because I love my patients." She let the smile linger and deepen a little as she got up to leave.

I have been relatively untouched by cancer in my life - I have not been diagnosed and neither have those around me who are close to me. Yet I find so much comfort in that encounter. It's among my favorite memories of working on that unit.

Sent by Jay | 12:55 PM ET | 06-16-2008

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Leroy Sievers

Blogger

Leroy Sievers in the Ted Koppel Documentary

Leroy Sievers speaks with Dr. Christos Georgiades. Credit: Tyrone Turner

A Ted Koppel documentary focuses on his friend Leroy Sievers' "My Cancer" blog and the response it evokes.

About 'My Cancer'

A journalist for more than 25 years, Leroy Sievers worked at CBS News, the Discovery Channel, and ABC News, where he was the executive producer of Nightline. He wrote this blog daily until his death in August.