Someone's pancreas. Not mine.Metastatic pancreatic cancer.
Nice man. Felt a bit dodgy. A little poorly. Not his usual sprightly 70-odd self. A little breathless. The xray showed a large pleural effusion. Duly drained off by knackered junior doctor. What could cause this effusion? Hmm...let's scan every inch of his body to find out. Oh dear. Pancreatic cancer. And the liver is choc full too.
Now, any doctor/nurse/physio/medical secretary/porter/cleaner/hospital dustman would know enough about this to know the treatment: drive to a nice hotel, charge everything to Visa, twice daily aromatherapy massages, Belgian chocolates on tap and... wait to die. You'll never have to pay the Visa bill. Because you'll be in heaven/nirvana/choose your afterlife by the time the bill comes through the post.
Problem: the loving family don't belong to any of the above employment categories. They want everything. Can't they operate? No. Can't they give chemo? No. Radiotherapy? No. So that's it, is it? You're just going to let him die?
What could I say? I thought about if it were my father. And my family were looking at some kid doctor in his 20s who looked like he'd just left prep school. A doctor who was telling us our father was going to die within months.
Sigh.
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