Reader’s Corner | Sometimes caring matters more than curing: an oncologist’s reflection

Before I could even ask my assistant to get his records, I got a call from a colleague at another hospital about the same patient, and what followed hit the surgical oncologist inside me hard. He had a very aggressive variant of sarcoma that had spread to his lungs and had failed to respond to multiple lines of treatment.

I first called the patient’s parents and asked if they understood the prognosis and likely outcome of the disease. Calmly, they said they did and had already made peace with it. I still couldn’t understand the purpose of visiting me.

Then, very calmly, his mother said, “He has fluid building around his lungs and I can’t see him gasping for breath like this. Is there anything you can do for it, just enough so he can have the next few weeks in comfort?”

I was puzzled by both the request and the timeline. His father probably sensed it on my face and called his son inside.

The boy greeted me with a cheerful “Sat Shri Akal” and sat on the stool next to me. I asked him about the severity of his breathlessness so I could decide the next course of action, but he made the same request, asking me to give him a few weeks without any pipe or drain inside him.

I asked him why those few weeks mattered so much, and his answer left me wondering about the meaning of life itself.

“I have my final exams next week, and I have prepared well despite my illness, so I want to take my exams,” he said. Then, with that same sparkling smile, he added, “After that, I have my class farewell party and that might be the last chance to spend time with my friends. I really want to go there.”

Here was a 16-year-old boy, fighting a losing battle against something most people cannot even imagine, and yet he still found meaning in his final days.

I told him that we would do everything in our capacity to make it happen, and indeed we did. The next day, we performed a small surgical procedure to drain the fluid from his lungs and administered medicine directly into the lungs to buy him enough time before the fluid reaccumulated. He was discharged after two days with hope in his heart and a prayer on my lips.

About three weeks later, I got a call from him in the evening. The happiness in his voice was enough to tell me that my prayers as a surgeon had been answered. He had taken his exams and had just returned from his farewell party.

A few days later, his father messaged me about his passing and thanked me for giving meaning to his last few days.

As oncologists, sometimes we become so consumed with trying to win the war that we stop noticing the little battles. This boy made me realise that even if we lost the war, winning that one battle was enough.

The end of life deserves as much dignity as the beginning of it. Sometimes, caring matters more than curing.

The writer is a surgical oncologist.