5.
“This handsome, bright, cheerful four-year-old kid came to the ER because he was having trouble moving his feet around. I’ll call him K from now on. His mother told us he’d been only slightly less active in the past two days than usual. No fever, cough/flu, diarrhea, stomachache, vomiting, or any signs of infections at all…”
“…The pediatric resident then performed the physical exam; the motor strength and reflexes were quite bad, especially on the lower extremities. Other than that, everything looked good. When the kid was asked whether he experienced pain or discomfort in the extremities, he sweetly told us no, he didn’t feel any of that. He also never experienced severe headaches or dizziness. Urinating and defecating also seemed pretty normal.
True enough, the lab results came first without any abnormality. As we were waiting for the CT-Scan result, my friends and I talked a bit with the kid and his family because he was so, so endearing. In an uncomfortable room full of kids crying their hearts out, K calmly played with his mother and aunt. He also didn’t cry when the IV line was inserted earlier, although he said it hurt. His plump cheeks, clear skin, and jet-black hair also made us more fond of him. However, the situation rapidly changed when the CT-Scan result was released. It clearly showed a nasty mass on the brain, highly suspected as a malignant tumor that needed immediate surgery.
After that, it was almost like a blur. The pediatric residents consulted with the neurosurgeons. Then it was time to break the bad news time for the family: There was crying and panic, negotiation about therapy options, and the prognosis in the future. I usually don’t really involve my feelings in this kind of moment, but that night I did. Fast forward to about a week later, I had my shift in the pediatric ward. And there I found K, lying unconscious on the bed, his tracheostomy tube attached to the manual bag valve mask operated by one of my colleagues. Here, the pediatric patients who didn’t get a ventilator machine in the Pediatric ICU were placed in the usual ward, and the clerkship students like us would squeeze and squeeze the Bag Valve Mask all day and night long, alternating between 12-hour shifts. And so I spent my 12-hour weekend shift pushing oxygen into his lungs and suctioning the sputum of poor little K.
The surgery went well, but K never woke up from his sleep a week ago. Something must’ve been going really wrong. The chance of him living was always really thin, close to none. His family will always have a spot in my heart.
