“As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods. They kill us for their sport.”
-King Lear, Act IV
There are certain days that everyone will always remember. People of my generation uniformly remember where they were and what they were doing the day that John F. Kennedy was shot. My children’s generation will never forget 9-11. For my parent’s generation, images of Pearl Harbor, D-Day, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were burned …
This is the question I get asked the most: “So Doc, how do I know that this is working?” Sometimes my patients come to me with visible or palpable disease—something on the skin that they can see fading away, an enlarged lymph node in the neck that shrinks visibly during treatment, a lump or a bump that disappears, much to the gratification of both patient and doctor. But most of …
Sometimes, you can see cancer coming. What I mean is that when we sign up for that mammogram, or that PSA blood test, there has to be some tiny little part of us that says, “Ok, this time it’s my turn. This time I’m the one who’s going to get the call.”
Sometimes the cancer sneaks up on us—that nagging little cough that makes us want to—suddenly and belatedly—quit smoking. Or …
I never gave my hands much thought until a few years ago. They were never pretty, but they were functional serviceable hands that did what they were asked—I could examine a patient, type fast and accurately enough, and everyone always told me that my handwriting was outstanding. That has always been a point of pride for I knew that I was never going to kill a patient because a pharmacist …
Some things are just so damned hard to write about. People often ask me, “Why do you have so many animals?” The current count is 4 dogs, two horses and a cat. I used to say, “Because it’s good for my children to learn responsibility. Having a dog, whose life is so much shorter than our own, teaches them about love, and about death. They get to practice parenthood, before …
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