Continue to Write Anonymous

The patient shakes, her feeble arm plastered with goosebumps. The room is a standard 63 degrees. The air is crisp, cool, and sterile. The physician’s hands are gloved. The warm blue latex seems to comfort the teenage girl, and some of the goosebumps fade. Her blue eyes and fair skin seem incomplete without her blonde hair, small patches peeking from her bald head. Her body is weak, but her eyes scream of hope.The physician’s practiced hands lift her right arm, almost effortlessly. The physician feels for the vein in the patient’s wrist and it takes less than a second, the blue vein protruding from her weightless forearm. The intravenous needle gleams. The hope in the patient’s eyes diminishes from hope to fear.

I’ve seen this transition many times today.

A patient’s first chemical therapy session is never pleasant. The insertion of the needle is quick, but the anxiety in the patient’s eyes will last for hours after. The physician smiles, but her voice doesn’t quite match her appearance. “I’ll be back in fifteen minutes, sit tight.” I shift my gaze from the patient to her mother, whose eyes are sunken in, drowsy, yet still swollen from the tears that flowed just minutes before the appointment. She expresses far more fear than...