Madness by Kate Richards

Author:Kate Richards
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781742535623
Publisher: Penguin Group Australia
Published: 2013-12-05T05:00:00+00:00

My work portfolio covers clinical trials of new and hopefully better therapeutics in leukaemia, lung cancer, breast cancer and prostate cancer. Some of the novel agents are drugs, others involve a new radiotherapy technique or a new surgical technique or a combination. We educate patients and families, provide support and collect clinical data. Obviously, the ability of a new therapy to treat or cure cancer is paramount, but we spend a lot of time assessing adverse events as well as efficacies. That is, talking with, and examining patients to see if the new treatments are affecting them adversely, and if so, what action we can take.

One of my patients is a young woman with breast cancer concerned about her fertility after chemotherapy. There’s a mother of three young children who can’t get out of bed in the morning because her haemoglobin is so low and a twenty-one-year old who has devastatingly relapsed after a bone marrow transplant. Some days at work are uplifting and others bring great sadness.

Richard was on his second honeymoon when he noticed blood in the toilet. He didn’t tell his new wife, didn’t want to worry her. Didn’t tell her that he had booked in for a colonoscopy when they got home. Didn’t know how to tell her when the biopsy result came back as cancer. Richard’s wife hates hospitals – both her parents died in a hospital – so Richard attends his weekly appointments for chemotherapy alone.

Richard is forty-nine. He has a full time job, a new wife and two teenage sons. He has bowel cancer that has spread to his liver and lungs.

Every Wednesday at nine in the morning, Richard is sitting up straight in his chemotherapy chair with the newspaper and a cup of tea.

‘Morning Kate,’ he says brightly.

‘Morning Richard. How are you?’

‘Excellent.’

‘Yeah?’ I sit down beside his chemo chair.

‘Yeah.’ His face is more grey than pale. Exhausted.

I learn forward just a little.

‘Well . . . you know how it is . . .’ he says.

‘How are the nights?’

He folds up his newspaper and looks at me. After a while, he says, ‘Long.’

‘How much sleep are you getting?’

‘Not much.’

‘Pain?’

‘Yep.’

‘Where?’

‘Back, tummy, lower down.’

‘Worse that last week?’

‘Yeah.’

‘What else?’

‘Oh, the usual. Nausea.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Just can’t get off to sleep.’

‘How about in yourself . . . how are you feeling?’

He looks away. Looks back at me. ‘It’s rough.’

‘It sounds rough.’

He smiles.

‘Okay,’ I say. ‘Let’s talk to your oncologist about your pain medication. And we’ll get you something stronger for the nausea. What else can we do to help, Richard?’

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