Patient vs. Person

When I finish next month I'll be the first patient to finish my treatment protocol at Dana-Farber. When I found this out it made me feel weird; all of a sudden I felt this pressure on me, like I'd better do well or else type of thing. Obviously that's more extreme and yes, I am 100% aware that this 'pressure' is totally self-imposed. What I realized though is my results are not just mine personally, but they're medically relevant and reportable. My personal results are my team's professional results. And that's weird.

My sister's been doing chemistry problem sets all day. It's not like if she gets a problem wrong her answer says, "Whoops - sorry!" If your car breaks down there's no consolation. When you solve the Times crossword, the newspaper doesn't pat you on the back. Every problem has its solution, right or wrong; but they're not emotional, there's no personality.

And then there's me. Problem? ALL. Solution? Lots and lots of drugs, IVs, needles, procedures, with some radiation sprinkled on top. You know, just for fun. That's ME though. All of that. On the report it's just a bunch of numbers: dates, dosages, calculations based on my body composition. But at the end of the day Patient #123456 is a twenty-three year old girl who's just trying to live her life, whatever that's meant to be. I am a person, but my charts make me just a number, one out of a bunch that are all on this treatment protocol waiting for the results. We're waiting to see the numbers when in fact, we are the numbers, we are the statistics. Percentage of complication; survival rate after one year, two years, three years, five years; percentage of relapse; it's all on me.

At Dana Farber on the way to the cafeteria they have this big timeline tracking the history of the Institute, but also cancer research and treatment breakthroughs since obviously DF has played major parts in funding research, raising awareness, all that jazz. Now, I'm a part of that. I'm not complaining; trust me, I wouldn't have it any other way. It's just a weird line to draw between 'science' and 'personal'.