Staying under the radar

One of the daily occurrences in a teaching hospital is the ritual review of each patient's case. The Attending Physician leads a team of Residents, Med Students and Nurses around to review each patient's case on the ward. Typically this means that you have a conversation with the Attending Physician each day but often it is in the presence of about 10 people!

Yesterday, my visit by the Attending Physician and her entourage wasn't quite the same. Instead of the normal crew of faces, many of whom I don't see except on rounds, it was the Attending Physician, the Resident that was on floor at that time, the Charge Nurse, and my Nurse. That's it. Four. Now, it was Saturday so the people that might expected to join rounds could be smaller as a result but when I greeted the Resident with "hail, hail the gang's all here" she replied, "there aren't many of us". When I saw how small the group was I asked, "Not a very interesting case?" The attending's reply confirmed for me what I've been coming to recognize in this process: "You don't want to be an interesting case."

And she's right. If being interesting means having complications, delays, or worse lack of success in removing the cancer then I'm glad to be particularly boring. So far so good on that front. There are no complications and my side-effects from chemo have been so minimal as to be considered non-existent. The progress or effectiveness of my treatment has yet to be measured--that will not occur for a couple more rounds.

For now, I'll take hearing that my case is not interesting and that I continue to appear strong and healthy for a cancer patient. Perhaps I'll be the most unremarkable cure yet.