Legacy from the Dying to the Living

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By Jamie Yao |  December 2, 2016 | 

By: Jamie Yao

Jamie is a fourth year medical student at the University of California, San Francisco entering into the field of internal medicine. She shares how her recent experience on a palliative care rotation at Moffitt Hospital in San Francisco, CA inspired her to express her feelings through poetry.

Many of the moments on my palliative care rotation, such as the ones described in the poem, were inspiring. One that particularly resonates is when I had the opportunity to facilitate and witness the video chat exchange between one of our patients and his family, including his young children. It was simultaneously joyful and heartbreaking to see the love shared between him, his fiancee, and children. It was one of the many examples I encountered of the interactions between patients and their loved ones, who were often the crux of what patients derived meaning from in their lives.

“Legacy from the Dying to the Living”

Comin’ to take me away, away, away
She sang! The brightest smile on her face
Despite sharp tuberosities on which she lay
Dreaming of the trumpets, the sax, the bass

We talked about nausea, ended with a prayer
Patient and providers held hands, closed eyes
In those moments of peace, fully breathing air
With faith in God and His love, is when we truly rise

Family at bedside, red eyes, distress
Beep, shuffle, ring, click, and hum
“Doc, tell me please, is there progress?”
That hidden question: succumb or overcome?

Colorful cards of well wishes adorn the walls of glass
Around the breathing tube, mechanical vent, and IV drips
Kiddos around the bed, they’re not in class
Something’s out of place: the child eating Kix

One child takes the other youth, to meet them one by one
Their words between kids, not privy to what they discuss
He talks to them about what is going on
Can it be- a child understands better, better than us?

Nausea, vomiting, fatigue, pain, difficulty to eat
Morphine, Reglan, Olanz, the small pink pan
No feeding tube, he said, no burden to my family
Yet this father/grandfather/husband had always given a hand

“I don’t want to suffer, but for life I would fight”
Home, support, feeling good with the assist of hospice
What does this mean for: shocks, tubes, an ambulance in the night?
Immune therapy trial comes with hope, not promise

Cryptogenic cirrhosis, then they found a mass
Labeled as that much feared terminal diagnosis
There’s only one month, it’ll go much too fast
Still want to travel, to fish . . . too much on this list

Cocooned in blankets, he states, “I have no regrets.”
Between sobs- “I hope they quietly remember me
“Celebrating my life, not grieving- that is my mindset
“Leaving my legacy of work with folks with disabilities”

I am now speaking with the patient unable to speak
He mouths words to me that I can’t quite understand
Reading lips is not yet my best technique
But eyes, oh those expressive eyes, I can

But no need for a voice to tell his son of his love
Son’s turning one, both their birthdays just one day apart
Never will his baseball connect with his baby’s glove
(Crying while writing) But to hell if he won’t connect with his heart!

The care of patients- rather, of human beings
Is quite impossible to truly, honorably describe
Their medical management we are planning and overseeing
It’s through the strength, vulnerability, hope, fear, love, memories
That in death we witness what it means to be alive

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About the Author: Jamie Yao

Jamie Yao is a fourth year UCSF medical student entering the field of internal medicine. Prior to medical school, she majored in Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics at UCLA and completed a year of AmeriCorps with Hudson River HealthCare in Peekskill, New York. During her time on a palliative care elective at Moffitt Cancer Center, she had the privilege of working with and learning from an interprofessional team that showed her the varied ways that providers can care for patients. After being incredibly impacted by the patients she met and the vulnerability, resilience and love that they shared with her and their loved ones, she wrote her reflections in the poem, "Legacy from the Dying to the Living."

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