Trying to get procrit for a patient.

First, you have to make a special request.
Then you have to find funding, if possible.
Then you have to check the dose with the specialist.

The trouble with government clinics is that we are underfunded, but for really vital problems, like procrit for cancer patients, we can get the stuff quickly...but lots of red tape.

The gentleman today-- and he is a true gentle man-- got his within a week. His cancer is being treated aggressively, and we don't know if he'll make it or not.

When we started getting funds to give the stuff, one of our first patients had terminal leukemia. We saw him every week get weaker...and twice arranged transfusions, even though he was "hospice" patient, i.e. had a "do not resusitate" and no extraordinary treatment on his chart. But he wasn't quite ready to g0, so we had him transfused...

We had his church pray for him and lay on hands. We discussed that often patients know when their time is come, and the fears. Except for weakness, thank God, he was not in pain. But every week he was a bit weaker...and held on.

Finally, I asked: who isn't here, who hasn't visited him? It turned out his son was in Afghanistan. So we put a call to the Red Cross...and got his son home...alas, he died a day before the son arrived, but the father knew the son was coming.

Often, we have patients say "goodbye" to us, and then quietly die in their sleep, or go into a coma. My own father did this.

But my favorite story is a man who had lung cancer, and who I pulled back twice from the brink of death. Finally, we all knew it was the end, but he just was scared and kept hanging on.

Then a priest came to visit. Often, priests are too human, and talk the talk but may not be "good" with the dying, which is a gift one is given, or one earns form suffering.

This priest lived in a tiny Native American village, which had many traditional people (and many people who were both Catholic but kept Indian traditions alive)...The priest wanted to be a missionary, but developed a severe illness that made it impossible for him to do so, or even to work at a vigourous parish. So they sent him to this isolated spot, where he did not have to work hard. And he prayed a lot, and the locals loved him.

So the father came in to say "hi", and saw he was dying, and asked if he wanted prayers.

The man nodded "yes" (he was a nominal Catholic) and so father prayed a few minutes, and touched him in blessing.

Then Father said: "It's okay. You can go now"...and the man smiled...and died.

One of my professors said few doctors are pious but few are true athiests either, because we see so much.

The blessing of a peaceful death instead of one in fear is something we all wish for...but rarely see.