Treating a refugee, I wished I had the power to alleviate his trauma and write him a new future
A man feels constantly nauseous, is rapidly losing weight, and complains incessantly of abdominal pain. He has had a battery of normal investigations and now, his doctors wonder if it could be cancer.
The patient is young. I am anxious. No youth should have to confront a cancer diagnosis. I enter the room to find him curled up in bed, looking morose. His equally young friend hovers solicitously. He tells me his friend speaks little English, but I don’t need language to know that the patient is unwell and dehydrated. His eyes are dull but more than that, they look sad in some inexplicable way. He has a flat demeanour, as if he has given up on something. On what? On life, before age 25?
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