theshadowstudent-blog

[theshadowstudent-blog]

Ignorance can kill you

It had been a furry of orientation and lectures the past couple of days before it was finally the first day of clinicals as a radiation therapy student. It wasn’t as nerve wrecking like my first time as an x-ray student. I had quaked in fear of everything and everyone. I had worried that I will break the equipment, hurt a patient by being too rough, doing something that will ultimately deem me too incompetent to even be on the floor working. But as a therapy student, I was more comfortable. Excited even to finally combine reality with my lessons in class.

However, my first day was not my introduction to the linear accelerator. I did not play with the pendant nor even talked with any of the therapists. Instead, I shadowed nurses and trailed behind medical students and oncology doctors and I had the biggest lesson of my life. It was not a lesson that will apply to me as a radiation therapist in the future. It was a lesson that I learned for my friends, family and myself if I ever become the patient. A lesson of how ignorance can kill you.

Although multiple versions of this situation with different patients happened throughout my 8 hour clinical shift that day, this particular one will stay with me. A man in his late 50s came in to oncology clinic early afternoon. He had been diagnosed with 15 tumors in his brain that was treated at a hospital in a different state. He moved to be with his son and transfer his records here. Since it was his first visit and was only here for a check up, he went straight to the nursing station where I took his temperature, pulse and weight while the nurse drilled him about his medical history. He was a polite, old fashioned, proud southern man and more than happy to share his life stories. While the nurse went to prepare a room for him to speak with a doctor, I listened to the patient as he talked about his previous job as a trucker, how proud of his son who was the first person in his family to go to college. Sometimes, he will say something terribly sad yet in such nonchalant way it was almost comical. “My wife killed herself when my boy was young.” he will say or “I hope this thing my head didn’t spread because I already had to pay for two funerals for my brothers this year!” “How long have you been in remission?” I asked and he shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know ma’am. I just don’t know. All I know is I have never been sick my whole life. I just had that seizure last November just that one. Then they tell me I have this thing inside my head and I need Chemo and surgery. But I never even had a headache before all of this!” It confused me how one could know so little of the disease they had, but it became clear when once the patient and I walked into the room.

I stood in the far corner, quiet as I watched the baffling interaction between the patient and the medical student. “Hello,” the medical student introduced himself. “I am a medical student and I want to talk to you about your health history before I get the doctor.” He began to go over the notes from the nurse asking for details and verification. He could get very little. “So you had a PET scan done last month before moving here?” The medical student will ask. “What is a PET scan?” the patient will respond. The student will try to explain using diction that the patient could clearly not understand. After a couple of minutes of flimsy attempts to explain what a PET scan, the student brushed it off and moved on. This went on a couple of times with MRIs, CT and surgery mentions. I grew frustrated watching, almost wanting to step in and say “If the machine was long and you were it in for 30 minutes or more it was an MRI. If the machine was donut shaped and it took only a couple of minutes it was an CT.” Alas, as I was only a therapy student and it was my first day, I bit my lip and just listened. My only hope was that the doctor will be more clear. 

The doctor was a nice man, truly concerned for the welfare of his patients as I witness him advocate for many previous patients earlier that day. I thought that the patient will now really know what is going on. Unfortunately, I am comfortable in saying that the patient probably left more confused. When the doctor said lesions, spread to the lymph, palliative v.s curative the patient was silent but his face was saying WHAT IS He GOING ON ABOUT?! Sometimes he ask what something was the doctor perhaps unknowingly describe a medical term with another. When the doctor suggested radiation therapy the patient grew worried. “I didn’t like what that did to me last time. I was always so weak and tired...and I only just grew back my hair.” “Oh, that wasn’t therapy sir.” The doctor said. “That was chemo. Radiation would not have the same effects.” He went on to explain the side effects of radiation therapy.

It was a brief meeting. The doctor suggested a couple of treatment methods and patient brushed it off, almost defeated in trying to understand. “You know best, doctor. You do what is best for me.” Then they left to sign some consent forms and I stayed in that room to clean up. Clearly the patient did not understand half of what was going on. Did he know what the spread to the lymph nodes in his chest mean? That doing a palliative treatment means the cancer is so advanced, therapy is not to cure but to improve the quality of life as much as possible? Why didn’t he ask if he didn’t understand? 

If someone with some basic understanding of the human anatomy and medicine was the patient, what the doctor was saying was not too difficult. However, not everyone was educated the same way. Just like I don’t have a clue on basic tax forms, some people have zero knowledge about their bodies. Sometimes that is understandable. It’s not something you had to be aware of your whole life before you got sick. You not knowing where your thyroid gland did not have any effect on you until you get thyroid cancer. But after that educate yourself. Learn. Don’t just say “You know best doctor.” Ask them questions. Ignore their sighs and impatience. This is your body. Know what is going on, find your options and then find more. How does chemo differ from radiation therapy? Why do you suggest one over the other doctor? 

Don’t feel like what the patient felt that day. As I walked him out of the clinic with his first therapy appointment in hand, he said, “I don’t know how to tell my son this cancer of mine spread. He’ll have so many questions and I don’t know if I can answer them.” “Why didn’t you ask questions when you were with the doctor?” I asked. He laughed, “It’s intimidating, and I can’t really understand the half of it.”

Within a couple of months, I am sure he will know what palliative treatment means. I just wish he finds out sooner. 

[theshadowstudent-blog]

[theshadowstudent-blog]

Blog Vomit

I have never blogged before. Not like this. This is why I can assure you TheShadowStudent will be a blog vomit. 

There will be things I randomly remember or sporadically find out and need to write down. So I may go on a tangent. It may be another 2-3 posts before the story I posted a week ago finally connects with another. But hey what can I say? It’ll keep people on their toes...or not.  

[theshadowstudent-blog]

When I was younger, people will ask me-”what do you want to be when you grow up?” My answers have always varied. I wanted to be a zookeeper, a lawyer, a librarian, a bookstore owner...but never did I say I wanted to be a doctor, or a nurse. Even as a child that was never something I was interested in. In high school while I pondered what to study in college and truly decide my career path, anything in medicine never crossed my mind. 

In hindsight, being a doctor or a nurse never appealed to be me because I never really knew much about it. No one in my family worked in a hospital. Majority of my family were in owning and managing businesses. I was never hurt or sick enough as a child to warrant a doctor’s visit other than the yearly shots and check ups. In the start of college, my friends were studying to be engineers, researchers and teachers. 

What I knew of the world of healthcare then was what I saw on t.v shows where doctors ran the whole facility, discovering and innovating science daily as they sacrifice their life to devote themselves wholly to help those in suffering. Nurses were there to heed to their every call and take care of the patient after the doctors perform life saving innovative surgery. It was definitely cool watching those shows and grey’s anatomy still one of my favorites but now I know. It’s very, very far from the truth.

So how did I become a radiation therapy student, just recently graduated from an radiologic technology program? I wish I can conjure a beautiful, inspiring story where I had an epic event in my life that lead me to this calling. Alias, that is far from true. The reality is, without getting too specific, I was limited financially and with time. I needed to get out there in the world and make money instead of digging a hole of debts and loan year after year whilst I was in school trying to be a bachelors, masters or Ph.D in something. I needed something that will get me working asap. This and ultimately slipping on a x-ray school brochure that lead me down the path I am today. 

Now, don’t get me wrong. Just because this was not what I dreamed to be since I was a little girl, doesn’t mean I am not immensely happy with what I am today. This just means that when I first started 2years ago, a lot of things were unfamiliar and shocking. You now have a girl working in a hospital who has never set foot in one till she began school, who is not here to be studying as a doctor or nurse. She can be no body at times just observing and waiting and watching the whirlwind, the chaotic furry that can sometimes be the hospital and finding out slowly that grey’s anatomy got a lot of things so very wrong.