I first met Edwin (not his real name) one Saturday in September 2011. He was around 5 feet 4 inches tall but was all skin and bones that his slight mother could actually carry him with very little effort in her arms. Bedridden, unable to talk, and with a nasogastric tube stuck into his nose, he did not present a very comfortable sight. Edwin has SSPE, or subacute sclerosing pancephalitis, actually been living with it for the past two years. He was then only 11 years old. SSPE usually occurs at around the age of 9-11 in children who have had measles before the age of 2 or before they had been vaccinated against the disease. It is a rare sequelae of untreated measles but it happened to Edwin. His family lives in a single-room house in one of the most impoverished and least sanitary areas in urban Metro Manila – Payatas.
The medstudent organization of which I’ve been part of for the past three years is socially- and health-oriented. As such, it is typical for the health coordinator to impart with us some of the community’s health-related troubles from time to time. More often than not, the problem is usually public health in nature. However, when the health coordinator quietly asked me to go with her that particular Saturday to meet a family with a special health problem, the first thought that popped into my mind was that I was going to meet a family with a bedridden elderly patient, most probably diabetic, hypertensive, or stroked out.
According to one doctor who wanted to volunteer his services by alleviating Edwin’s pain through acupuncture, Edwin was facing a <20% chance of survival. Despite the helpful tone of his text message, the underlying question was, “Why are you wasting your time on that?” In all honesty, I do not know but, having met Edwin, having spoken to his mother who had been crying the whole time she was talking about the difficulties that came with Edwin’s condition, it is difficult not to “waste” some time on this.
Every time my orgmates and I would return to the community once or twice every month since then, visiting Edwin and his family became a routine. He may not know any of us, not really. I certainly was not a lot of help since I do not have money, connections, influence, or even the adequate knowledge to truly help. But, for families struggling with a chronic disease, emotional support means a whole lot and can go a long way in lifting morale.
How did I get to know Edwin? I never really did. Maybe I never will.
Yes, I want you to cry at this point. That is exactly my intention when I started writing this piece.
Most doctors tend to remember specific diseases by the signs and symptoms presented by their patients. These patients eventually lose their faces and individualities in these doctors’ minds by the time these doctors’ have mastered those said diseases. Of course, it is imperative for doctors to master diseases to be able to conquer them with effective treatment plans in the future. However, perhaps we do a disservice to ourselves and to the faces that embodied those diseases by forgetting the patients who have taught us not just to be competent doctors but how to be human as well. Those patients were not, are not, and will never be a waste of time.
Related articles
- Health News: Experts plea for children to be vaccinated (walesonline.co.uk)
- Measles surveillance: 2011 (bio230fall2010.wordpress.com)
- Measles: 7 things parents must know (cbsnews.com)
Oras at Medisina 