The first case I looked at today was a 15-year-old boy who had brain cancer that metastasized to his spinal cord. In the process of trying to treat his cancer, his doctors harvested bone marrow (ouch), which caused deep venous thrombosis. As of Valentine's Day of this year, his doctors were giving him months to live. He denied radiation and chemo treatments, because he wanted to spend his last days living rather than dying. He almost denied a wheelchair for the same reason, but his doctors convinced him that he would be able to do more with the chair than without it. Currently, he cannot walk.
My 15-year-old loves to walk. He'll go out in the back yard, or in our side yard, someplace private, and just pace back and forth and wear a path into whatever strip he's pacing. While he's walking, he'll create characters, screenplays, stories, video games, ponder politics and current affairs. He calls it fantasizing. He's thinking about the future that he will be a part of.
I can't seem to shake this case this morning. I've been fighting increasing depression every day that I continue to come to my job. But then to be greeted with this kind of thing... it was almost too much to take this morning.
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