Cancer Week

I've decided that it must be cancer week on our unit. Got two patient's in ajoining rooms with very simular diagnoses. Keep getting their labs and stuff mixed up (LOL) because almost same diagnoses. Work a cardiac floor, just not used to side by side cancers I guess. One gent came in for a heart cath and finds out he has a lung mass. The other came in knowing he had colon cancer, was actually already scheduled next week for surgery, but had complications...and wound up on the cardiac floor. Neither of these guys are really young...but it just hits you sometimes, you know, there sometimes is no way of knowing just what is sitting there in your gut or lung just waiting like a spider for the "right" time to spring on you.

I remember one patient I had came in with shortness of breath...she was in her mid 30's, she was a smoker...but what had happened was she was letting her dog out and the wind caught the door and hit her in the ribcage with it fracturing the rib. What she didn't expect was that when the x-ray showed the fractured rib....it also showed extensive lung cancer. She lay there is the ICU barely able to breath....not sure if she really wanted to know what lay ahead. She had on perfect makeup, she had "enhanced" perfect breasts, she had met and recently married the "perfect" man. What she did not have was the "perfect" diagnosis.

So, there ya go....Cancer week.....*sigh*