Why did I decide to do this?....I met a woman on a Jetblue flight to San Diego last year, and we shared stories of our families and the tragedy of cancer (my mother, her daughter) but also we talked about the extraordinary doctors, and nurses who treated them. We agreed that somehow, these stories are lost when we talk about health care these days. Everything is negative...So to counter that... here is something positive.
My mother lost her life to cancer, but she fought it, and right beside her were her amazing Doctors and nurses. We can never thank them adequately, but I will try here.
My mother was diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer in early March of 2007. She was 75 years old. A non-drinker, non smoker, in terrific health, and with the spirit of a woman far younger than her age. She died on March 16, 2008. She was referred to Dr.Robert Fine, who treats patients with Pancreatic Cancer and conducts extensive research on this type of cancer at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital. My sister went with our parents to the initial consultation with Dr. Fine in New York. She called me when she was on her way home and I recall her exact words were,
" I SO wish I was related to this brilliant man! He is so impressive, and so dedicated...we all loved him". Dr. Fine's message was clear. Very, very few people will live more that a few months, or even a year, with Pancreatic cancer. (Patrick Swayze lived 2 years, and that's considered a long time.) But he told my mother, if he determined through some other tests that she could handle the strong chemo treatments he wanted to start... maybe she would be one of the few that could live longer, and indeed he was determined that he do everything he could to save her.
With that encouragement, she agreed to try....
So that journey began for our whole family...children and grandchildren tried to accept this news. Test appointments were made...emails flew all over the world to close friends.... the shocked sad responses were read by us all. Our mother who had never been sick, endured all the treatments with incredible grace, and even humor. When she developed a bacterial infection during her third month of treatments she looked right at the Doctor and threw up her hands..."Can't a girl get JUST cancer these days?" He was stunned. And then he laughed.
My mother chose to take her treatments not in New York City, but in Morristown, NJ at the Carol Simon Cancer Center at Morristown Memorial Hospital. Dr Fine has a colleague who administers his chemo-blend there named Dr. Stephen Schreibman. Another amazing Doctor. Dr. Schreibman moves around his office (which is adjacent to the room where his patients receive their chemo-drip treatments) like a man who is racing for the cure all by himself. I went to that meeting with my parents. I could see my mothers hands shaking in her lap though she did not want us to see how frightened she was. This is not a journey anyone wants to begin. But "Schreiby" as we came to call him was ready for this challenge.
Let's go! He would wander in and out of the treatment room...thumbs up, "you OK?" And then off to meet a new patient, and then another. We asked him how he had come to treat patients with this very deadly cancer...and he responded that he had actually retired from oncology after many years treating juvenile leukemia. This disease, he told us, was now a type of cancer that they could cure completely in most cases. He was proud of those many years of treating children, of the trials that finally lead to good answers for Dr.s and patients (and their parents!)...but just as he and his wife were getting ready to finally relax a bit and retire to the sun...he went to a lecture and heard Robert Fine talk about his research on Pancreatic Cancer. And so he joined Dr. Fine's army.
They all tried so very hard to save my mother. They altered doses, spoke with our family at all hours, Schreiby's assistant, Allyssa spent many hours answering questions, and making suggestions at all hours of the night. The staff at the Simon Cancer center were extraordinary, and I often looked at them as they went about administering these very toxic treatments, chatting with patients, smiling, offering drinks, or food, or blankets...and wondered, how do they do this job? No patient in this room will survive very long...the answer is, I don't know how any of them cope with what must be sad news every week...but they do their job well, and the care they give deserves many, many thanks.
So that's really my story...too long I am sure. Needs editing. But to merely thank Dr. Fine, Dr. Schreibman, Allysa, my mother's Dr. at home, Gail Zimmerman and her assistant, Mimi and all the nurses at all the facilities...will never be enough. I hope they will read my story, and I hope others post stories so we end up with a long unending series of accounts of gratitude for intrepid work that so many Doctors perform everyday.
