Patient D. Growing up the comfortable depths of the Southills area of Pennsylvania, D had a pleasant childhood despite her mother’s death from an asthma attack when she was a mere ten years old. But eventually, everyone grows up and gets older. People start to make their own life decisions, and sometimes people choose poorly. This became accurate in that D began to smoke. And after a lifetime of smoking, after day after day of inserting toxins into one’s body, some bad is bound to make its way into that person’s life.
She began to feel a minor twinge within her chest and simply happened to mention it to her doctor, as several months earlier she was diagnosed with pneumonia, when it fact it was cancer that was eating her apart. The cancer was able to mestacicize into her brain and she was later correctly diagnosed with lung and brain cancer. Previously, she had been burdened with health issues such as fibril milage, but she was generally a healthy and active individual. On May 23, 2006, D was officially diagnosed with cancer from her primary care facility. And when she discovered this life-altering news, all D yearned to do was throw herself completely flat on the floor and have a dramatic tantrum. But her husband’s hand was intertwined in hers which made all the difference in that instant. When she had first discovered this tragic diagnosis, she leaned into the wall and bawled, but the thought “Why me?” never crossed her mind. She knew that she wasn’t special. She knew that unfortunate things happened to those living at completely arbitrary times and that nothing could have eradicated the possibility of it.
But something that can be done is prevention. When D’s nephew heard news of her diagnosis, he quit smoking. However, others didn’t take the news as swimmingly. Her childhood friend was only able to cope with the possibility of D’s demise for six months and then she proceeded to cut ties completely.
Traveling to meetings seemed to be a positive method of coping- so she tried it. But they ended in nothing but depression and death. You learn to love and trust someone and then in a couple weeks, you discover that they were dead. It is difficult to handle losing such a large amount of people.
When she was first situated into her cancer treatment, D was hospitalized for seventeen days and presented with a presidential suite, fully equipped with a plush sofa, lounge chairs and a sizable tub and shower. The occasional snotty nurse would pay her a visit, but the majority were imbued with utter kindness.
Cancer has an intriguing method of knitting people tighter together. Talking to her daughter every day as she drives home from work may not have formed into a habit had it not been for D’s cancer diagnosis. And yet it often has a way of tearing people farther and farther apart as well. As a somewhat dying wish, D desired to learn how to play the piano. And since her husband assumed her death would be somewhat immediate, he complied and purchased an immense grand piano that was entirely out of their financial budget. Yet he assumed that after her death, the piano could be returned and their fiscal dilemma would disappear. He also sued the doctors for negligence, hoping to add a little more money into their finances to account for the costly cancer treatments. But one thing must have remained true in order to receive the money in both the piano situation as well as the lawsuit: D must die. And that is not quite what happened.
D is currently alive today and her lesson learned was that “you have to remain positive and it’s okay to be weak as weakness makes you stronger.” She notes that she is stronger than she had ever thought she could be at the moment, mentally speaking at least. Yet D still continues to smoke, proving that once a habit is formed it becomes increasingly impossible to alter one’s mindset. The most successful method to prevention is to never commence such routines in the first place.
lifeofcancer 