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Cancer and Health

Constipated Doctors

Is there a good side to Terminal Cancer?

By Dr. W. Gifford Jones

Can there possibly be anything positive about dying from terminal cancer? For years I have focussed on the pain and agony suffered by so many patients afflicted with a fatal malignancy. But recently a headline in the Medical Post caught my eye. Dr. Robert Shepherd, a physician and victim of terminal cancer, described in an article some of the advantages of knowing you have just a short time to live.

What Dr. Shepherd wrote reminds me of Samuel Johnson's remark that, "Nothing sharpens the wit so much as the knowledge you're going to be hanged in the morning." There's little doubt that Shepherd's medical diagnosis helped him rearrange his priorities.

Shepherd explains that he's always loved eggs in any form. However, like so many others he had developed "cholesterolphobia" and had limited himself to one egg a week. That was the day before the CAT scan showed widespread malignancy. Now the scan says to him, "This doctor can eat all the fried, boiled, scrambled or eggs benedict smothered with hollandaise sauce that he wishes."

His message includes a warning to all of us who fall into the hands of doctors in our final days. Shepherd discovered that being a physician did not save him from what he labels "constipated doctors". And faced with the prospect of dying, he was less inclined to suffer these fools gladly.

Shepherd relates that one of his own colleagues treated him in a brisk, unthinking, and insensitive manner. He had explained to this young physician that his tongue was sore from a biopsy performed the previous day. But the doctor nevertheless grasped the tongue directly on the wound and asked him to say "aaah!"

Shepherd asked him a straight-forward question, "What good in the name of Heaven does an "aaah" do when the chart in front of you is full of reports from weary days of laryngoscopies, biopsies and a CAT scan, all of which state there's no hope for you?" It makes as much sense as standing in the midst of a raging forest fire and lighting a match to see if the forest is burning. Any fool would know this isn't a time for more "aaah's". It's a time for sympathy, courtesy and an end to meaningless tests.

I'm sure that day after day in this country such nonsensical treatment continues. And it will remain until medical school admission committees realize that it's high A's in personality and good sense that cures patients, not high A's in physics and chemistry.

Terminal cancer made Shepherd less politic. But he admitted there was another side of the coin. Friends and acquaintances could be equally blunt. An old farmer in the local village met Shepherd on the street. "You the guy with terminal cancer?" he enquired. Shepherd said he was. "Well", he said, speculatively,"Still here, eh?" A former patient of the doctor's didn't waste much time either on his plight. She asked,"really cancer eh? Too bad. Now about those pills you gave me."

Shepherd muses that knowing he'll meet his maker a bit early has another advantage. No leaky bladder, failing eyesight, or a memory that gradually fades into oblivion will plague him. Nor will he ever know the regret of becoming a burden to his children. It's a much better feeling to know that he leaves them while they still want him to stay a little longer.

Nor is there any desire to acquire more material things. No longer does it matter if the price of gold goes up or down. Or whether the lakes are dying from acid rain. It's no longer his problem.

Shepherd sends thanks to Heaven that his particular cancer is beyond treatment. Now no decision is needed about whether or not to accept treatment. He remains in control of his own body. Faced with a treatable malignancy, radiation to the back of the throat might have been necessary. This would have caused rotting teeth, loss of taste, and scarring of flesh. The "experts" would have called the shots and as Shepherd says, "scoured his body, turned it on a spit until it repented, by God, or died!"

I share Shepherd's views that there are some malignancies for which treatment is difficult to accept. It is often better to enjoy a few months of quality living than to face extensive surgery, radiation and chemotherapy which leave a shadow of the former self.

Dr. Shepherd hasn't lost one precious commodity, his sense of humour. When he called his accountant to set up an early appointment he was asked how he was feeling. "Lousy", Shepherd replied, "I'm not well at all." "How come?" came the retort, "What's wrong?" "I've had the worst possible news", Shepherd replied. "Oh" the accountant exclaimed,"You're going to be audited?" "Come to think of it," Shepherd replied,"I guess you're right!" 


W. Gifford-Jones M.D is the pen name of Dr. Ken Walker graduate of Harvard. Dr. Walker's website is: Docgiff.com

My book, �90 + How I Got There� can be obtained by sending $19.95 to:

Giff Holdings, 525 Balliol St, Unit # 6,Toronto, Ontario, M4S 1E1

Pre-2008 articles by Gifford Jones
Canada Free Press, CFP Editor Judi McLeod