The Pink Rose

Mrs. Peone was a relatively young woman, fifty-something. Too young, for the Fate handed to her. She had been diagnosed with breast cancer just a few months before.

Unfortunately, the initial surgery and harvest of lymph nodes showed widespread disease. The cancer had taken root. Her plastic surgeon tried to reconstruct the breast area after that initial surgery. It was a valiant effort, but complicated by infection. Microbes took advantage of the patient’s weakness, festering into the area. I saw redness and breakdown of the tissues. The pain was palpable: this was as much a psychological wound as physical.

What a save!

A small miracle happened recently.  Actually this one wasn’t really that small – it was ‘huge’ considering the stakes.

 

A middle-aged man, who considered himself otherwise healthy had developed some chest pain after hiking.  He didn’t do anything about it for a whole day such as calling his doctor, which turned out to be a big mistake.  When he finally went to the hospital, the doctors ran a few tests and found out he was having a massive heart attack.  As fate would have it, he survived just long enough for the doctors to start treatment.  If he had waited only a few hours longer, he would have died.

 

The doctors had to perform an emergency surgery to bypass the areas of the heart where no blood was flowing.  He struggled after the surgery, requiring a special machine called an intra-aortic balloon pump to help his circulation.  This type of intensive treatment is very concerning as a lot could go wrong.

 

I got called in on the case because the patient developed pneumonia while on the breathing machine after his cardiac bypass operation.  I’m an infectious diseases doctor, and I knew we had to start some broad spectrum antibiotics, but he was critically ill and I didn’t think he was going to make it.  He had multiple organ failure because of his weakened condition – his heart wasn’t able to pump enough blood for quite some time.  The cardiac surgery and the intra-aortic pump helped, but his kidneys had shut down, his liver was damaged from shock, and he remained dependant on machines to keep him alive…  after all, he remained in extremely critical condition.