Thanks for the perspective. I have felt this too, and I'm sure others have.
Bradley Cheek
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http://www.wcsquare.demon.co.uk
-----Original Message-----
From: [log in to unmask]
[mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Dr Mark Trowell
Sent: 30 November 1998 10:04
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: R-E-S-P-E-C-T
The sickly-sweet stench of putrefaction fills the room.
Cancer; it could only be.
She'd taken to her sick bed months before,
Refused to tell her family what was wrong.
"I'm so sorry that my husband called you out on Sunday"
The humility of her voice, so inappropriate.
To save her family more pain,
She'd tried to drown herself in the bath this morning.
And now as I peel back the bloody vest,
A friable fungating tumour,
The size of my fist,
Hangs bleeding from her arm,
Whilst asparagus tips push their way from her axilla.
I fight back to nausea.
Don't just do something,
Sit there.
I hold her hand,
What can I say?
"I'm so sorry....."
She begins again.
"Don't be" I reply
Here, at the end of the twentieth century,
With my life so easy,
Lies this woman,
51 not out.
R-E-S-P-E-C-T,
I listen as she dismisses offers of help,
Content to be allowed to die in her own home.
Pain free and surrounded by her family,
I cannot understand her reasoning,
But duly acquiesce.
My heart cries silently,
Suppressing the rage welling inside,
As I examine another snotty kid in the clinic,
As she lies dying in her bed.
Mark
Dr G Mark Trowell
Highbridge Medical Centre
Pepperall Road
Highbridge
Somerset
TA9 3YA
01278 783220
01278 785486 (Fax)
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