Next Chapter & Final Chapter

Next Chapter: as I was getting ready to leave from work last night, one of the pediatric residents paged me to let me know that PJ (Sept 07) was back in the emergency department. We haven't seen him since he was discharged to a specialist for further care of his brain tumor. Apparently, he has been receiving radiation treatment and a new experimental chemotherapy. It was nice to see him and his mom, and to get an update on the status of his condition. However, he looks remarkably different than when I saw him back in September. His long-term prognosis is still not very favorable.

Final Chapter: JP died this week. She was admitted to the pediatric intensive care unit with an infection, and her prognosis was extremely poor. Her family and the team made the decision to withdraw life support, and she died within a matter of minutes. Inside her small room in the PICU, just before she died, were all of her family members. And they had a birthday party. She would have turned two this coming Thursday. So her family gathered, had cake and ice cream at her bedside, and celebrated her short life. I will continue to be amazed by how incredible JP's mom is.

I am back on medicine wards this month, as the senior ward resident. In addition to covering my own patients yesterday, I was responsible for precepting all of the new admissions that the interns did.