Becca Quinn is a GP working in South West London. She enjoys being part of a dedicated team serving an inner city population. She uses poetry to crystallise moments in general practice that give us pause, and a chance to take stock in the maelstrom of NHS primary care.
Cancer does not walk in straight lines
It does not wait to enter, does not abide.
It does not announce, nor diarise.
It simply appears, spiculated, rude,
gnawing down our tendersilk life.
It is a wormbed. It hackspawns.
Its rhythm is impossible to shake, for
it takes and takes and takes.
We cope. We bargain
currency in days, we are brave,
draw up, prime lines, aspire
to look the colossus in the eye.
But just when you think it quiet
and watch it lay down its shaggy great head
and quietly start to count
its rate of respiration,
it turns mid tide, mid observation
banshee like,
to seize you in its jaws.
**********
I was painfully reminded recently that we have no monopoly on estimating prognosis. Patients with cancer progressing towards the end-of-life stage often show telltale signs that enable us clinicians to put in place palliative care support. Each service helps us rationalise and distance ourselves from the rawness of approaching death. This is the reason that we can say to ourselves after the event, that this, ‘Was a good death’.
When it comes unexpectedly, from another angle, an unforeseen event, we feel cheated. We feel unprepared and interrupted, and hesitate to call relatives, because we ourselves had not been ready to say goodbye.
Featured photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash
