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StumbleUponA Medical Miracle
The operation turned out to be even more extensive than expected: After removing the portion of the stomach with the tumor, the surgeon discovered the cancer had also extended its tentacles into the esophagus, and its lower third had to be sacrificed. The surgeon grafted a piece of intestine between the remaining esophagus and stomach stump to serve as a surrogate channel, so that George could eat.In the laboratory, pathologists began their work with George's removed stomach. The tumor was dead; cancer cells were nowhere to be seen. The textbook explanation was that the cancer was merely hiding. While many cells had been destroyed by the radiation and chemotherapy, many others would circulate in the blood and lymphatic system. New masses would soon appear. The cancer would fill his intestines and occupy his chest, until it killed him.
But George would not acknowledge this. Not long after the surgery, he had himself again admitted to the hospital to undergo another round of even more toxic chemotherapy. I was deeply saddened. If I were George's doctor, I told myself, I would have taken Eunha aside and questioned the decision to resume chemotherapy and radiation. Wasn't that the doctor's role, to protect George from more pointless treatment?
Thirteen years after George's cancer diagnosis, on a chill December day in 2000, I was sitting in the atrium café of the hospital. I rose from my chair as I spied George. Even after all this time, he was still gaunt. But his eyes were animated and his voice strong as he greeted me warmly.
I carried a gnawing sense of guilt. After all, I had written George off. He would not be alive if my recommendations had been heeded.
I asked him if he had insisted on the radical treatments by ignoring the grim statistics.
"I knew exactly what the numbers were," he said. He told me that when he returned home, he planted some daffodil bulbs that would bloom the coming spring. "I told myself, Maybe I'll get to see them flower, but likely I won't. Then they will be for my grave."
"Did you know that I and virtually the entire medical staff disagreed with the treatment?" I asked.
"I did." George paused gravely. "And I knew the arguments made in cases like mine. Treatment would cause unnecessary suffering -- for me and for my family. Add in that it throws away society's money on a doomed person." His eyes narrowed. "I find these arguments patronizing. I did even before I was ill. It was my right to choose to do what I did.
"Even if I didn't prevail," he went on, "it was my only chance. I deeply wanted to live and had to fight. Then I could tell myself that I had done everything possible."
How could we, ultimately, understand his case?
"It is a medical miracle," George said, emphasizing the word medical. "What it says is that even the most aggressive and gruesome cancers can sometimes be stayed. Sometimes the unexpected happens."
George's remarkable recovery was a turning point for me. Since then I have come to believe that hope, true hope, is as important as any medication I might prescribe or any procedure I might perform. To hope under the most extreme circumstances is an act of defiance that permits a person to live his life on his own terms. It is part of the human spirit to endure and give a miracle a chance to happen. Hope, I have come to believe, is as vital to our lives as the very oxygen that we breathe. George Griffin knew this long before I did.
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