Indexing Title: DCHUA’s Medical Anecdotal Report [05-10] 

MAR Title:  Accepting Fate 

Date of Medical Observation: November 2005 

Narration: 

A forty-year-old patient of mine sought me out a week ago, complaining of a little discomfort at the operative site.  She had undergone mastectomy half a year ago for stage IIIA breast cancer and complied with my recommendation of adjuvant CAF chemotherapy at another sponsoring institution.

 Physical examination revealed a small, movable subcutaneous nodule just under the incision scar.  As this was not there before, I feared the worse and explained my suspicions to her.  With tears in her eyes and hands holding her toddler daughter, she voiced out why fate continues to cheat her, why other breast cancer patients get cured with treatment.  Stage of the disease aside, I had no good answer and just hung on to the remote possibility that this was not a recurrence.  She was scheduled for excision biopsy and metastatic workups.

Insights: (Physical, Psychosocial, Ethical) (Discovery, Stimulus, Reinforcement)

 Even with good surgical margins, cancer recurs.

Life is not fair.

Patients’ accepting illness is a long and difficult process.

Doctors’ accepting inability to provide cure is similarly filled with denial.