There Will Be Cake

As most of you know, my cousin Becky is an ICU nurse at KU Med. This month I am working on her unit. (Hehe) I have been learning a lot so far, but it hasn't been easy. When surrounded by extreme sickness and death, it is inevitable to consider one's own mortality. There were a couple of days that I questioned my belief in Western medicine. But I'm back on the wagon now, mostly because of one patient in particular. I'm not sure how much I'm allowed to say; not much I'm sure. Suffice to say he caught a nasty infection after a round of chemo and we all thought he was going to die. He said that he had that feeling of impending doom. The attending physician told us that when patients say that they're usually right. The priest came and everything.

He didn't die, at least not yet. We did a good job treating him for infection and sepsis (Xigris for the pharmacy geeks out there), so now he has about three months to live (cancer). The thing that had me mad was that he wouldn't have gotten the infection if it wasn't for the cancer treatment. So often treatment we give leads to a problem leads to another treatment and so on. What we need are more actual cures.

About the title: There was talk of an ICU wedding. Through the whole thing, especially when it got really bad, the guy kept saying "I just want to get married." I was promised cake.