Winning the Lottery

Ch. 37 Death

"I did. I thought I could fight this. I thought I could live through it, for my family, for Kelly. I had such high hopes. My wife is a general surgeon and I didn't tell her. I was in pain for six months and I didn't tell her. I didn't want something to be wrong, so I put it off. I was in the wrong and I'm loosing it all. I'm loosing everything I ever cared about, hurting my loved ones, because I was an idiot. I didn't want Kelly to see me as another sick patient. I wanted to stay her husband. I wanted that so much for her and now I'm dying. I won't get to see either of my sons get married. I won't get to see my grand kids. I failed me."

I didn't know what to say.

"Promise me something."

I nodded.

"If you have something to say to someone, don't wait. Don't hold it off. If you've got a voice in your head that is telling you to do something, do it. Don't second guess yourself. There's no time for second guessing. You just have to know, because you could make mistakes with either side of the coin, okay? You just have to decide which decision had the lesser mistakes."

I nodded.

"Okay. Now, go check on your other patients. I'll be here, waiting."

I left the room and went to the nurses' station. I handed them Peter's chart. "Mr. Hamilton cannot have any visitors today. If anyone comes, have me paged, okay?"

She nodded.

I nodded and went to an on call room.

I wiped the tears from my eyes. I wasn't expecting Peter to say anything like that. I wasn't anticipating feeling this awful when I became a doctor. They didn't teach you about this in med school, didn't prepare you for the real world of medicine. Yeah, it was a science, but it was a whole different kind of science. Social science. It was having a heart that did more than just circulate blood. It was about emotion. That was something that needed to be taught.

When I calmed down, I went out and found Dr. Cole.

She smiled, "How are you this afternoon?"

"I'm fine."

She rose a brow. "You don't look fine. What's going on?"

"It's nothing. I'm fine. I checked on Peter Hamilton. He looks good and-"

"Yeah, what's with the no visitors thing?"

"He requested no visitors, said he was tired."

"That's unlike him to ask for such a thing, though. Did he seem okay? Depressed?" she asked, looking over some notes.

"Yeah, he's giving advice and kicking himself for not coming in sooner."

She froze, looking up at me.

"This trial is killing me. I don't know how much more I can take. How do you do it? How do you deal with the cancer and the sick, dying patients? How do you do it?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. I wish I did. Dr. Malone, if you were a typical resident, I'd tell you that you can leave the trial and I can find another resident, but this is your treatment. This is your clinical trial. You can't back away now."

"But it's killing people."

"People who knew it was going to be a shot in the dark. This trial was their last hope. Look at Carly. She's a 27-year-old, who's going under extensive treatment, but she's okay. She's got time; we're giving her time."

I nodded.

"You should go get a cup of coffee, maybe a bite to eat. Take a break, okay?"

I nodded.