During the past few months as my wife’s fought lung cancer she’s been suffering from unrelenting back pain.
She pushed through it in order to have surgery and begin chemotherapy.
Since she’s had chronic back pain for most of her life, we figured this pain was a typical episode and that over time it would get better.
But instead of improving, it got worse. Her back has given her more pain than her surgery and her chemo combined.
After months of suffering, she had enough. We made an appointment with a back specialist. We expected to hear the usual:
- Let’s start with steroids, an injection, and physical therapy to help.
- If that doesn’t work, you may need surgery to repair a bad disk, fracture, stenosis, etc.
X-Rays and an MRI was ordered.
We got the MRI results via email over Labor Day Weekend.
It’s bad news.
My wife has a large tumor in her sacral area that is causing her back pain. Her lung cancer has metastasized.
A few days later we returned to see the back specialist.
She’s a young doctor – probably in her late 20s or early 30s. She sat down, looked at as and said,
“It’s the worst news possible. I can’t help you. I spoke to a neurosurgeon. He cannot help you either. You need radiation oncology to try to reduce the tumor size and get some relief from the pressure it’s placing on the nerves. I’m afraid that I have to refer you back to your oncologist. “
Her eyes welled up with tears as she broke the news.
The next day we meet with the oncology Physician’s Assistant.
She’s a young kid too, covering for the doctor after Labor Day Weekend. She thought we were there for a routine chemotherapy check-in appointment.
Instead, we interrupted her with an update on the MRI findings and explained that we were concerned about proceeding with chemo.
She was blindsided and stepped out of the room to review the MRI report. She returned a few minutes later.
With tears in her eyes, she told us.
“We are suspending chemotherapy and ordering an immediate consultation with radiology. We have to treat the tumor causing your back pain before doing anything else.”
Before both visits, I had days to research online.
We already knew this was terrible news.
The hopes of curing my wife’s cancer are gone.
At best we can try to slow the progress and reduce it’s symptoms.
Survival ratest are grim. Life expectancies are projected in months.
I have watched my wife suffer with agonizing back pain for months.
Now we know she will have more suffering, more treatments and eventually death from this.
We have cried a lot together and separately.
The back specialist and the Physician’s Assistant knew our prognosis is terrible too.
When they shared the news with us, they couldn’t hide their emotions completely.
They were seeing a wife, a mother, a friend, a daughter, a sister – a human being in pain who they could not help and is dying.
And so they cried too.
I hope they never learn to conceal this side of their humanity.
Their tears meant a lot to us.