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Don’t Fist Bump Me. My Mom Is Dying. Maggie Conner Throughout medical school, I have watched many physicians deliver
poor prognoses to patients. Some do it very tactfully, with grace and compassion. Some stumble through it, making an awful situation even more unpleasant. The worst I have witnessed was not when I was watching, but receiving—when an oncologist told my mother she had terminal cancer. My mom was a lovely, healthy 58 year old who had no medical problems and did Zumba regularly. One evening, she had chest pain and shortness of breath. A CT scan in the emergency room came back with shocking results. She had multiple blood clots in her lungs and a four-inch tumor on the tail of her pancreas, in addition to the numerous (i.e., too many to count) smaller tumors in her liver. This prompted a slew of tests, but her doctors continued to reassure us that we wouldn’t have any definitive news about her prognosis until the results of her tumor biopsy came back. After a week of painful anticipation and imagining the worst, we were called into the office to discuss the results. My mother was the youngest patient in the dingy oncology waiting room by at least twenty years. Bland elevator music played in the background. I caught a whiff of the distinct smell of vomit. I realized the trashcan next to me was the culprit and quietly transferred it to the other side of the room. We waited in this purgatory for what seemed like hours. Finally, we were taken to a room. More waiting. My mother perched on the exam table, the paper under her crinkling every so often when she shifted. I examined the wall of obscenely brightly colored pamphlets advertising cancer drugs. A nurse walked in. “What have you been told?” she asked. “Nothing!” we almost yelled, our tone clipped with frustration. She pulled up my mother’s chart on the computer and clicked around for what felt like an eternity. She turned to us, avoiding eye contact, her voice flat.
